Team Building
by AkamaiMom
Summary: Sometimes, it's all about size. And sometimes, it's all about color. A series of one-shots, but each reads as complete. Just conversations that don't really have anything to do with anything.
1. Size Matters

Size Matters

"Hey, Daniel, what size shoe do you wear?"

The Gateroom bustled with activity around them. SG-1 was waiting to embark on a routine mission to check on the Grubdin, a small society recently liberated from some Goa'uld or another. Sam, Teal'c, and Daniel had been ready long before O'Neill, and stood in front of the ramp, waiting for him.

Sam had spent the time staring at Daniel's feet.

"Uh, nine, or thereabouts." Daniel looked down and wiggled one boot.

"How can a size be thereabouts?" Sam wondered out loud.

"Well, you see, I have really narrow feet, and so I can't ever just buy them off the rack." He absently answered as he consulted a note book he was holding.

"Do shoes come off of racks?" Sam grinned.

Daniel gestured vaguely at eye level with the hand not holding his notebook. "Those shelf-y things. You know what I'm talking about."

"Boxes. Daniel, shoes come in boxes."

"Yes, but those boxes sit on racks."

"Whatever." Major Carter looked back down at his feet. "So those are specially-made boots?"

"Nope." Daniel wiggled the foot again. "These are regular out of the box ones—I just wear extra socks."

"Oh." Sam regarded them for a while before stepping closer and putting her foot next to his. "Wow. Check that out. We practically wear the same size."

"You have big feet." Daniel pointed out.

"Not really—I wear a nine and a half."

"Women's size."

"Well, yeah."

"Big." Daniel pointed at her boots. "Big, big feet."

"No they're not."

"Yes they are."

"Nuh-uh"

"Uh-huh."

"No."

Exasperated, Daniel shook his head at her. "Who _are_ you, _Jack_?"

Sam chose to ignore that. "I _don't_ have big feet. They are _healthy_ feet."

Teal'c stepped into the conversation. "A warrior needs a solid foundation, regardless of his or her gender."

Daniel turned to glare at the Jaffa, while Sam beamed at him.

"Therefore," Teal'c continued, "the size of Major Carter's feet is neither large, nor small, but rather appropriate for her position and task."

Sam, grinning, turned back to Daniel. "See? Not big. _Appropriate_."

Daniel rolled his eyes. "All I'm saying is that for a woman," he glanced at Teal'c pointedly, "An _Earth_ woman, Sam has pretty large feet."

"Could it be," Teal'c intoned, "That for a Taur'i male, you, Daniel Jackson, have _small_ feet?"

Daniel, exasperated, stomped one of those tiny feet. "Why does it matter anyway?"

"I just asked what size shoe you wear. You don't have to get all prissy about it." Sam shared a smile with Teal'c, then turned back towards the 'Gate.

"I didn't get prissy."

"Yes, you did."

"No, I didn't"

Teal'c had had enough. "You did indeed become, as you say, _prissy_, Daniel Jackson."

Daniel immediately clammed up. Lips pursed, his jaw worked rhythmically. Sam looked down and hid a grin.

It was a long while before Daniel broke down. "Why did you want to know?"

Sam shrugged. "My dad. He asked for some hiking boots the last time I had a communiqué from him. He said that the Tok'ra boots don't fit right. Something about arch support."

"And he didn't tell you what size he wears?"

"No. But I think they'd be around your size. I'm thinking I can buy the size you're wearing, and then one on either side, and be pretty safe."

"Your dad's not as tall as I am."

"No, but his feet look to be around the same size."

"Whose feet look around the same size?"

The Colonel had arrived. He stopped between Daniel and Sam, cradling his P-90 in his arms.

Daniel stuck out a foot, heel down, toe straight up.

"What, are we playing the Hokey Pokey?" Jack stuck his out, too. "When do we shake them all about?"

"Sir." Sam, still grinning, nodded at their outstretched feet. "I was comparing the size of my father's feet to Daniel's. I'm trying to figure out what size hiking boots to buy him."

Jack looked from his own foot to Daniel's. "Wow, Danny—you've got little feet."

"I do not. They are just fine, thanks."

"What size are those?"

"I don't want to say." Daniel put his foot back down, then shifted.

"He requires a size nine, Colonel O'Neill." Teal'c gestured with the butt of his staff weapon. "Although he dons several pairs of socks to fill the void created by his apparently narrow feet and the government-issue boots."

Colonel O'Neill, interested, looked at Daniel, eyebrows raised. "Like, how narrow we talkin'?"

Daniel remained stubbornly silent.

"Come on, Danny, you know we're going to find out, anyway."

Daniel glared first at Colonel O'Neill, and then at Teal'c. He saved a special look for Sam—a look known in some parts as 'stink-eye'.

The Colonel whirled, looking up in the control box at Walter, the technician. "Hey, Walter!"

"Yes, Colonel O'Neill?"

"What size shoe does Danny here need?"

The microphone crackled momentarily as Walter depressed the button again on his side of the bullet-proof glass. "Nine Triple A."

"_Triple A_?" The Colonel's eyes shot back to Daniel's feet. "Holy crap, Danny, what are you walking on, Q-tips?"

Daniel turned to glare at the control room, too. "Hey! How did you know that?"

Jack nudged Daniel with his shoulder. "Walter knows everything, Danny-boy."

Daniel stood in sullen silence.

Jack turned to Carter. "So, why does Dad need boots? Don't the Tok'ra have a Payless?"

"Something about arch support." Sam shrugged. "But he didn't say anything about size." She looked down again, noting for the first time the Colonels' feet. "If you don't mind my asking, sir, what size do you wear?"

"Twelve and a half." Jack stuck out a foot proudly, then quirked a look at Daniel. "Wide."

Sam appraised the boot appreciatively. "Wow. That's way bigger than you, Daniel."

"Can we stop talking about this, please?" Daniel pushed his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose.

Sam ignored him and turned to Teal'c. "How about you?"

Teal'c's gaze didn't waver from the 'Gate, but the corner of his lip lifted almost imperceptibly. "Seventeen."

"Seven—" The Colonel leaned over and peered at Teal'c's feet. "Wow. Impressive."

"The size of one's feet is in no way indicative of anything." Daniel muttered. "It's just a shoe size. Nothing else."

"Then why are you so sensitive about it, Danny?" Jack glanced at him sideways. "If it means nothing, that is."

"I can do everything with my feet that you can with yours."

"Yes, well, maybe not as well, though."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Daniel turned to Jack.

"All I'm saying is that size matters."

"Are we still talking about shoes?" Daniel whined the question more than asking it.

Carter shrugged. "I'm not sure what we're talking about now."

Jack tilted his head towards her. "Women know. _You_ know. Size does matter."

"Sir, I fail to see what shoe size has to do with anything else."

Jack sighed and rolled his eyes. After a considerable pause he said, "All I'm saying is that no self respecting guy walks into a pharmacy and asks for 'Regular'. Everyone goes for 'Extra Large'."

Suddenly, the 'Gate started to whirl, and the Chevrons began to light up in sequence. Sam bit her lip to keep from laughing as Daniel shifted his weight nervously from side to side and the Colonel and Teal'c shared an understanding look.

The Ka-whoosh shot down the ramp and then settled into the event horizon, and Walter gave them the go-ahead for departure.

"Ready?" The Colonel put his size twelve and a half wide boot on the ramp.

"I guess." Daniel shuffled sullenly behind him, Sam fell in beside the Daniel, and Teal'c brought up the rear.

At the 'Gate, the Colonel stopped and turned, placing a hand on Daniel's shoulder. "Don't feel so bad, Danny. Lots of guys have small feet and are still able to live full lives."

Daniel rolled his eyes. "Whatever."

"I just don't want you to feel bad."

"I don't feel bad." But Daniel proved his lie by remaining in a remarkable sulk.

Jack disappeared through the event horizon, and Teal'c stepped around Daniel and Sam to follow the Colonel.

Sam caught at Daniel's arm as he prepared to walk through. "Wait." She bit her lip. "If it makes you feel any better, your IQ is still way bigger than his."

Daniel's eyebrows rose, his mouth relaxing into a semblance of a smile. "You know, you're right. It is—it's _much_ bigger than Jack's."

Sam smiled back, patting Daniel on the shoulder. "There you go. Now, come on. Let's go check on the Grubdin."

"Women find IQ sexy, right?" Daniel still stood on the ramp, considering.

"Sure, Daniel, let's go." Sam jerked her head towards the 'Gate.

Daniel grinned. "Who really cares about shoes, anyway?" He adjusted his back pack and pushed his glasses up again. "Smart is where it's at." He nodded to himself, glanced back at Sam, and then went through the 'Gate.

Sam stood alone at the top of the ramp for a minute.

Twelve and a half wide. That merited some thought. She grinned.

She was still smiling as she stepped through the 'Gate.


	2. Am I Blue?

Am I Blue?

"So, Carter." O'Neill watched her from across the table. They had been in the commissary for around fifteen minutes, and he was curious about something.

"Yes, sir?" She paused, her spoon midway to her mouth.

"Why blue?"

She looked down at her green BDUs, and then back up at him. Her eyes narrowed in confusion. "Why blue _what_?"

"Jell-O." He motioned with his fork towards her spoon. "Why do you always eat blue Jell-O?"

"I don't always eat blue Jell-O."

"Yeah, you do."

"No I don't." She looked down at the parfait dish on her tray, scowling. "Do I?"

Teal'c looked over at her from the virtual buffet on his tray. He nodded slightly, a faint smile on his lips. "You do indeed consume only gelatin that is azure in color, Major Carter."

"See?" O'Neill jerked his head toward the Jaffa. "Told ya."

Carter put down her spoon and glared at the Jell-O still left in the dish. "I don't know. I guess I didn't realize."

"So it's subconscious." The Colonel raised his eyebrows at her. "You eat subconscious Jell-O."

"Subconscious Jell-O." Sam tried to follow the Colonel's reasoning, a feat which was complicated by the fact that the Colonel didn't reason like normal people.

"Your Jell-O choice. Not knowing why you choose as you choose means you don't choose consciously, therefore, it's subconscious."

"No, I choose after thinking about it, so the choice _is_ made knowingly."

"So you _do_ select the color each time." O'Neill raised his cup of coffee and peered inside. He found a floating bit of schmutz and dabbed it out with a finger. "You just _always_ select blue."

"I guess."

"So the question remains." He took a sip of his coffee. "Why blue?"

"I don't know."

Daniel appeared behind the Colonel, carrying a sandwich and cup of coffee on a tray. He sat next to Jack, across from Teal'c. Sam sat next to Teal'c and across from the Colonel. It was how they always sat, at the table that they always occupied.

"What don't you know, Sam?" Always a little behind, their Danny-boy.

"Why blue?" She was still frowning at her tray.

"Why are you blue? Could it be because you're a thirty-something unmarried, undersexed career military woman who seems to constantly lose romantic prospects to either death or catastrophic destruction of planets, and whose only friends appear to be a brotherly archaeologist, an alien, and her off-limits superior officer?"

Three pairs of eyes stared at him. Daniel absently shook down four sugar packets and tore off the tops, pouring them all at once into his coffee. He noted the silence only when he looked up from his stirring. His eyes widened behind his glasses. "What?"

"Jell-O, you _nit_." O'Neill motioned towards the parfait dish in front of Carter with his coffee cup. "Blue _Jell-O_."

Daniel's eyebrows steepled. "Oh. Whoops. Sorry, Sam."

Sam's expression told him he wasn't forgiven. After a few tries which had ended up in squeaks, she loudly whispered, "Under_sexed_?"

Daniel's stirring paused. "As far as I know, at least. Or am I wrong?"

"What do _you_ know about it?"

"Sam, we spend what—twenty hours of the day together? Usually more. When have you had the time to run on out for a fling?"

"I fail to see what this has to do with my choice of Jell-O flavor." She picked up her spoon again.

"It's really more _color_ than _flavor_—except for the citrus ones, don't they kinda all taste alike?" The Colonel reinserted himself into the conversation.

"They do indeed." Teal'c opined. "Jell-O is nothing more than processed and sweetened collagen harvested from the bones and hooves of deceased farm animals. Any other flavors purported in evidence by the manufacturers are entirely indistinguishable one from another."

The Colonel paused in his attentions to a doughnut. "And _that's_ why we don't take you to McDonald's, T."

"Yeah." Daniel pushed his glasses up on his nose. "I don't _want_ to know what's in those fries."

"Nature's bounty is unmatched in healthful quality and flavorful appeal by your Tau'ri food of convenience." Teal'c raised a banana and broke the peel open. "There is no allure in pieces of potatoes that have been immersed in boiling vats of lard."

"You eat pizza." Daniel argued. "Pizza's considered junk food, too."

"The Tau'ri are somewhat short-sighted in their views concerning pizza. Pizza embodies the perfect amalgamation of bread, vegetables, and meats, liberally treated with a topping of calcium-rich cheese. It is something of a portable, healthful feast, is it not?"

"Sure." O'Neill frowned. "Take all the fun out of it for me."

"I was not aware that food was supposed to be fun, Colonel O'Neill. Fruits, vegetables, and breads offer the body those quantities of nourishment not found in other foods that you enjoy consuming. Food such as cake and pastries are abounding in fat and sugar, substances neither healthful, nor beneficial."

"And yet you eat meat." Daniel pointed out.

"Animals proteins are part of the natural cycle of death and life. Boiling down their bones to make colorful dessert foods is not." The banana disappeared into Teal'c's enormous mouth.

"You're sucking the joy out of my life, Teal'c." O'Neill raised an eyebrow. "Do you mind?"

Around his banana, Teal'c managed to inter, "Indeed, I do not."

"Yes, well." Daniel motioned back to where Sam sat, spoon in hand, staring fixedly at her Jell-O. "None of this answers the initial question, which was, why blue?"

"You said it was because I was undersexed." Sam glared at Daniel from beneath her eyelashes.

"Geez, Sam." Daniel rolled his eyes. "I said I was sorry."

"Because you're a regular Don Juan." Sam's eyes narrowed as she continued. "Or Warren Beatty."

"Beatty?" Snorting, O'Neill looked up at Daniel, a half-laugh on his face. "G. Harding, perhaps. Buffett, may_be_, but Beatty? I don't think so."

Daniel opened a plastic packet of mayonnaise and prepared to squirt it on his sandwich. "And you can talk—why?"

"Because I'm a stud."

"Yeah—No." Daniel shook his head, squinting. "By definition, studs should have corralled more than one filly in the past five years."

"Oh, this stud _has_." O'Neill gestured towards himself with a forkful of cake.

It was Daniel's turn to snort. "Yeah, right."

Teal'c gazed at O'Neill steadily. "To my knowledge, Colonel O'Neill has engaged in liaisons twice during our travels through the Chappa'i, Daniel Jackson. Once with Kynthia on Argos, the other with the woman Laira on Edora."

"Teal'c—pshht." O'Neill growled, jerking his head slightly in Carter's direction. "That's in the vault."

"Then why did you enter it into conversation, Colonel O'Neill?"

"I was just shooting the bull, you know?"

Teal'c furrowed his brows. "How do your escapades with women relate to the targeting of male cattle, Colonel O'Neill? And how do any of these topics bring to bear the subject of Major Carter and her subconscious consumption of azure gelatin?"

"They don't." Daniel noted. "So, Sam, why do you?"

"I've already told you that I don't know." It came out harsher than she'd intended.

"So it _is_ subconscious." He was back to peering at her over his glasses.

"Good grief." Sam pushed away from the table and leaned back in her chair. She folded her arms over her abdomen. "I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"Why not? It's just friendly conversation." Daniel took a sip of his coffee, put the cup down, and reached for more sugar packets. "We're just trying to know you better."

"You know me just fine."

"We're just trying to plumb your depths. Really get to the bottom of things."

"Keep your plumbing out of my depths. I'm not sure where it's been."

"Yeah, Daniel, keep your plumbing to yourself." O'Neill finished off his cake with a flourish and placed his fork on his tray. Taking a last sip of coffee, he rose, setting the empty cup on the table. "I'm done. Let's get back to work."

"I just started." Daniel protested, gesturing to his sandwich. "At least let me eat my lunch."

"I am not yet finished consuming my meal, Colonel O'Neill. Perhaps you should go without us." Teal'c's tray was still around a third full.

But Carter had lost her appetite. "I'm done. I'll go back to the lab with you, sir." She wiped her mouth and hands with a napkin, wadded it up, and deposited it on the tray. Then, rising, she pushed her chair back in and followed the Colonel into the hall.

They walked companionably towards the elevators in silence. The Colonel slid his passcard into the reader and then stepped aside to let Carter precede him into the lift.

As the doors closed, he glanced down at her. "You okay?"

"I'm fine, sir." Her tone told him otherwise.

"Really? 'Cause I coulda sworn that you got a little peeved back there."

She turned to him and gave him a little shrug. "I guess you never get over being the little sister."

"Mark used to tease you?"

"Incessantly."

"I bet you can kick his butt now."

"Undoubtedly." She grinned, then bit her lip. "Uh, sir, you've got—" She pointed at a spot near his lip. "Something. Right there."

"What?" He felt for it, but missed.

She regarded him nervously before reaching up and dabbing at a spot at the corner of his mouth with her finger. "Cake. I think it's cake."

O'Neill grasped her hand and looked at the residue on her finger. "Even better. It's frosting." Without thinking, he brought her finger to his lips and licked it off.

Immediately he released her hand. "Um—yeah. Sorry about that. That was weird."

"It's okay." She took a deep breath, fought the urge to giggle. "I know how you feel about your cake."

"Same way you feel about your blue Jell-O?"

"Hmm." Carter shrugged noncommittally.

"You know why you choose it, don't you?"

The door opened, and she shot out of the elevator, O'Neill following close behind.

"You _do_ know."

"Hmm." She repeated. She swiped her card at the door to her lab and walked through, the Colonel immediately behind her.

"Come on, Carter. Tell me."

She hedged.

"Spill it."

She hesitated, leaning over to peer at the door. Daniel was still no where around.

"Promise you won't tell?"

"It's in the vault." He crossed his heart animatedly.

She took a deep breath, then blurted it out. "It's pretty."

"Pretty."

"Blue Jell-O is _pretty_. It's the prettiest food on base."

O'Neill's mouth opened, then closed, suspiciously like a fish's.

"There isn't much on base that's pretty. Most everything is gray and green and—well—manly. Blue Jell-O is pretty. So I eat it."

O'Neill stared at her for at least a dozen blinks. "You eat blue Jell-O because it's pretty."

"Yes, sir."

"That's—that's—I don't know what to say to that."

"I can see that, sir."

O'Neill watched as she pulled out the report they'd been going over before lunch, spreading the notes and copies out on her table in preparation for the team briefing they would have shortly. And he suddenly noticed things about her—the faint shimmer in her eyeshadow, the gloss on her lips. Her fingernails were subtly shaded—pink—he noticed. And tiny little stones glimmered in her ears.

A thought occurred to him like a bolt from the blue.

"Geez, Carter, you're such a _girl_."

Sam stilled and looked up at him. Her pink glossy lips relaxed into a brilliant smile. "Ya think?"


	3. Baby Talk

Baby Talk

"I do not understand the necessity of this shower. Should not the child be bathed after birth as opposed to before?"

They were standing in front of a little computer terminal at the guest services counter of Baby World. Teal'c, Colonel O'Neill, and Daniel had driven together in Jack's big Super Duty. Sam, held up on base with a misbehaving doohickey, had promised to be along as soon as she could.

"It's not a shower in the traditional sense, Teal'c. On Earth, a baby shower is a party meant to celebrate the impending birth of a child, and provide an opportunity for friends and family to bring gifts that will ease the way for the new parents." Daniel pulled the sliding drawer out from under the little terminal, posing his fingers over the keyboard.

"I still do not understand the purpose of bathing the parents in such a public forum. Can they not do this act for themselves while in private?"

"No, T—shower them with _gifts_." Jack lifted his hands to eye level and then brought them down, fingers wiggling as they descended. "Dropping presents on them—like it's raining."

"Would this not be painful?"

"It's figurative, T."

"What's Siler's first name again?" Daniel's question was met with silence and blank stares.

Finally the Colonel cleared his throat. "Uh—Sergeant?"

Daniel screwed up his face and shook his head. "I don't think so. Dan? Walter?"

"No, Walter's the little bald guy with the buttons." Jack knew that one.

"Buttons?"

"Yeah." Jack pushed imaginary buttons on an imaginary desk in front of him. "Buttons."

"Oh." Daniel nodded. "_That_ Walter."

"So, Siler. First name—Bob?"

"Fred?"

"Larry?"

"Clumsy." Teal'c's submission was given in thoughtful sincerity. "Perhaps he is named for his most obvious trait. As are the Smurfs."

Daniel snorted. He turned back to the keyboard and tabbed through "Father's First Name" and entered "Siler" in the "Last Name" field. The computer thought for a moment and then spit out two possible candidates. "Uh—Brandon, or Francis?"

"On the list for 'Father's Name' there's a Francis?" The Colonel peered over Daniel's shoulder to look at the monitor. "Poor guy—did his parents not like him or something?"

"It says here that Brandon Siler is expecting two boys." Daniel pointed with his index finger. "Is our Siler's wife having twins?"

"I do not believe so." Teal'c reached into the breast pocket of his Hawaiian shirt for the invitation. They'd each gotten one, but only Teal'c had remembered to bring his. Unfortunately, the announcement only said, "The Silers are on Stork Watch!" and featured a little paper cut-out of a bird carrying a bundle in its bill. The stork was glued on with some kind of adhesive that made it stick out. Below the bird were listed the place and time of the party, and a list of stores where the Silers were registered.

Apparently, Karen from Accounting, who had made and distributed the invitations, had figured that everyone on base knew the Silers' first names.

She'd figured wrong.

"So Siler's first name is _Francis_?" Jack looked appalled. "I can understand why he's procreating. Just to show the world he _can_."

"It's not that bad." Daniel clicked the "print list" button and closed out of the registry. "I knew a guy once named 'Beverly'."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Daniel waited, his hand poised over the printer, for the list to spit out. "He was on my doctoral review board."

"So, he was ninety."

"No—" Daniel thought about it briefly. "Late seventies, probably."

"Well, it was more common back then—giving boys girls' names." Jack pointed out.

"Just because the name is associated with a girl _now_ doesn't mean it was a hundred years ago. Today, girls are named 'Ashley' all the time, but back at the turn of the century, it was a man's name."

"And then, of course, there's _Airplane_."

Daniel turned to stare at Jack. "Airplane? I've never heard of anyone named that, male or female."

"No, Daniel. _Airplane_. The movie. Where the one guy says, 'Surely you're not serious?' And then the other guy says, 'I am serious and don't call me Shirley'." He'd acted out the voices, but Daniel still didn't show even a hint of recognition. Jack kept trying. "Leslie Nielson—the nuns talking Jive—the lady with the big—" He lifted his hands in front of his chest, cupping them as if holding two massive melons.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Daniel shook his head, his eyes narrowed.

"Boobs—these are supposed to be boobs." Jack reemphasized his hands.

"Yes, I know _that_, Jack, but I still have no idea what you're talking about."

Jack looked around before stepping closer to the archaeologist. "Women have them—they're kinda cool. You oughta check them out some time."

Daniel didn't grace that with an answer. He just rolled his eyes and held up the papers he'd liberated from the printer. "We have the registry list now. We told Sam we'd narrow it down before she got here."

"So, lead on, Danny. Narrow away."

"Why me?"

"Because you're the one with the list."

Daniel reached over and shoved it into Jack's hands. "Now _you_ have the list."

"I don't want the list."

"Neither do I."

"I don't know anything about modern baby stuff."

"Neither do I."

"Hey—you're _way_ more of a girl than I am." Jack held the list back out to Daniel.

Teal'c reached between the two other men and grasped the registry list. "I believe we will accomplish more if I am to consult this listing of possible gifts."

Chastised, Daniel and Jack trailed Teal'c as he headed out into the store.

Baby World lay before them—a huge warehouse for infantile needs. In the center of the store, separated by false walls, various sets of furniture intended for nurseries had been arranged in virtual rooms. On the back wall, under a sign saying, "Layettes" were recessed cubbies with an organized rainbow of color-coordinated crib bedding. To their right, row after row of shelving units carried hundreds of items in various forms of packaging. The cabinets were repeated on the left hand side of the store, only these were bigger—displaying dozens of varieties of chairs, strollers, and things that looked like little open-topped mesh cages.

The three men stared at the enormous store as if it were personally out to devour them.

Daniel spoke for them all. "Holy Buckets."

Jack gestured wildly to the Bacchanalia of Babydom. "What the hell _is_ all this stuff?"

"Baby crap."

"No." The Colonel pointed at the massive display of diapers. "Those are for the baby crap. What's the rest of this stuff for?"

Daniel took a half step behind Jack, as if they had just stumbled upon an enemy contingent of Jaffa. "This place kind of freaks me out."

The Colonel nodded. He spoke in a loud whisper. "It's like the estrogen is _alive_."

Daniel swallowed and turned to look at the Jaffa accompanying them. "Hey, Teal'c—what's on the list?"

"I believe that most of these items have already been purchased by other people." Teal'c held the list out towards the other two men at arm's length. "The items that have not been purchased appear to be printed in black ink, while the items that have been purchased are highlighted in red."

"Okay, then." The Colonel made a decision. "Read off a few of the black ink items."

"The Happy Baby Wipie Warmer."

"Possible. Next."

"Cotton Fields Reusable Breast Pads."

"Awkward. Next."

"Mommy's Friend Electric Breast Pump."

"Not a chance in hell. Next."

Teal'c flipped to the next sheet and looked up. "There are no more black ink items. The rest of the gifts on the list have previously been purchased by other people."

"So that leaves us with the Wipie Warmer." The Colonel punctuated with a finger. "Because I'm not buying that other stuff."

"The Happy Baby Wipie Warmer may be found on aisle 6-B." Teal'c consulted the list.

Daniel turned around until he found the correct aisle. "Over there." He pointed. "Shall we?"

They set off warily, but with purpose.

Aisle 6-B seemed to be filled with everything in the universe related to changing diapers. There were organizational units for changing tables, disposable diapers, cloth diapers, diaper covers, wipies, diaper disposal contraptions, diaper rash ointments, powders, and changing pads. They passed changing pad covers, sheets, diaper changing table activity centers, and safety belts. High above their heads loomed stacks of economy sized wipie boxes and jumbo packs of diapers.

But the spot marked for the Happy Baby Wipie Warmer sat. Conspicuously empty.

"Ah, crap." The Colonel bent down to look way at the back of the shelf—just to make sure.

"I think they're sold out of that." Daniel, yet again, stating the obvious.

"Ya think?"

"Perhaps we could purchase one of the other items on this list." Teal'c suggested.

"You mean the boob stuff? Absolutely not. To get on that kind of level with Siler, we'd have to buy him dinner first." Jack breathed out sharply. "Crap."

But Teal'c was intrigued. "What precisely is the intended use of a Mommy's Friend Electric Breast Pump?"

"It's for mothers who are nursing—" Daniel began.

"Many women are involved in the medical profession."

"No—nursing—breast feeding their babies."

"Do not all women of the Tau'ri suckle their children at their breasts?"

"Many do—many don't. It depends on their situation with work and stuff. But women who work will still sometimes choose to pump milk out and into bottles to be used when they can't be there to nurse the baby."

"Much like with cows."

"Uh—Yeah. I suppose." Daniel shoved his glasses up higher on his nose. "It just allows women greater mobility right after having given birth."

"It would seem to me that simply taking the baby with them would be a more reasonable solution."

"That's not always possible, Teal'c."

"I see, Daniel Jackson." He clearly did not.

The Colonel waved an exasperated hand at the empty Wipie Warmer shelf. "That still doesn't solve our problem. We still don't have a gift."

"And you're nixing the pump and the pads."

"Damn straight I'm nixing."

"Well, I don't know what else to give them."

"Carter will be here soon." O'Neill gestured with his hands. "We gotta have something by then."

"Okay, then. What else could we give them?" Daniel stared up at the ceiling—as if looking for inspiration.

"Perhaps the child of Sergeant Siler would be benefitted by receiving his first weapon." Teal'c posited. "The offspring of a warrior should possess the implements of his father's trade."

"You can't give a baby a gun, Teal'c." Daniel shook his head.

"Unless you live in Arkansas." The Colonel added.

"But it's _Siler_." Daniel suddenly grinned. "So, what would a baby Siler need?"

Jack returned the smile. "Ya think?"

Daniel nodded. "I think."

----OOOOOOO----

Twenty minutes later, Sam parked her car next to the Super Duty in the Baby World parking lot. She stepped out and approached the rest of her team, who were leaning against the truck.

"I thought you'd still be in there." She stopped in front of them. "Did you guys find anything?"

"Oh yes." The Colonel reached into the bed of the truck and withdrew a gift bag. Dangling it by the string handles, he handed it to her.

She took it gingerly. "Something from the registry, I hope, sir?"

"Nope." He looked triumphantly at Daniel and Teal'c. "Better."

"Better." She hefted the weight of the bag, then looked at it suspiciously. "It's heavy."

"It's perfect." Daniel offered.

The Colonel pointed to it proudly. "We wrapped it ourselves."

"I added the bow." Teal'c inclined his head.

"It looks great." She held it up and carefully moved aside some of the wadded up tissue in the top of the gift bag. Cautiously, she peered inside the bag and let out a hearty laugh. "You're right, guys, that _is_ perfect!"

----OOOOOOO----

And later, when the party was over, Mrs. Francis Siler sat amidst a mountain of gifts. There were bags of diapers, boxes of wipes, and piles of onesies and sleepers. The ladies in Accounting had chipped in for a stroller, and Human Resources had all contributed for a battery operated swing and bouncer set. She had a funky little chair called a Bumbo, a high chair, and a portable crib. Baskets had been filled with bathing supplies and tied up with cellophane and ribbons. She could have painted the Eiffel Tower with the amount of diaper rash ointment she'd received.

But the gift that had made her laugh had been from Colonel O'Neill and his team.

She'd accepted the bag and dug through the tissue to find the perfect gift for a baby Siler.

SG-1 had given her the biggest, baddest First Aid Kit ever.


	4. Benchwarmers

I had intended all these to be just amusing little ditties—we don't often get to see "real life" with the team. But I find that I am physically and emotionally incapable of not shipping every once in a while. Sorry.

Benchwarmers

Jack O'Neill was bored.

Really, really bored.

And the service had just started.

And his suit itched. And it was his dress blues, which meant he even had his shiny monkey suit shoes on. And for some reason, they felt too tight and his big toes were hot.

And he was bored.

And the service had _just_ started.

He looked to his left, where Teal'c sat next to him. It looked like he was kelnorim-ing, the lucky bastard. If Jack closed his eyes like that, everyone would think that he was just sleeping.

He looked to his right, where Carter was sitting, dressed in her dress blues. She always looked so much better in them than he did. She never seemed to itch in the damn things, or sweat. And he bet that her big toes weren't hot. He glanced down to see that she'd actually slipped her shoes off and was gripping the carpet with her toes.

Interesting.

Her toe nails were painted—clear polish on most of them, but then a strip of white on the outer edge. And they were twinkling. He squinted a little—age was a bitch—and noted that her big toe nails had little flowers painted on them with a stone of some sort in the center. And those toes were kneading into the carpet rhythmically.

He leaned closer to her.

It didn't take much to get closer because the church brimmed with people—every pew filled arm rest to arm rest. The Silers had invited the entire city of Colorado Springs to their baby's christening.

Which put O'Neill in the enviable position of sitting closer than he'd ever been able to his second in command. Close enough, in fact, that he could smell her perfume. Floral, somehow, with a hint of citrus. So being in church was both good and bad.

But back to the toes. "Whatcha doing?"

"Shh." She answered without looking at him.

He ignored her. "Your toes—whatcha doing?"

"Sir, we're in church. No disrespect intended, but we shouldn't be talking."

He sighed and sat back up straight, but out of his peripheral vision, he could still see those toes. Twinkling.

There were just some things that were meant to be watched, and Carter's toes—heretofore unseen by her CO—were one of them. _Ten_ of them. Whatever.

She stopped wriggling them and crossed her feet at the ankles.

He leaned toward her again. "How do you do that?"

"What?" She whispered at him without turning her head.

"Put sparkly things on your toes?"

She glanced sideways at him in surprise. He raised his eyebrows, waiting. Finally, she leaned in to him. "Polish and super glue." The she leaned back in the pew. He watched with some sadness as she fiddled around with her feet until she'd found her shoes and slipped them back on.

Damn. Oh yeah—church—_Darn_.

He glanced down again, but there were no interesting toes down there any more. Just sensible low heels that were just as shiny as his own monkey suit shoes.

All of a sudden the congregation rose, and Jack found himself standing with them. He'd missed something—no doubt during his musings on a certain Major's feet.

"What are they doing now?" He whispered to his right.

"I'm not sure, sir, I can't see."

And then someone started playing music on an organ that reminded him of his eighth grade party at Smiling Bob's Roller Land, and people opened hymnbooks. But the little wooden pocket on the back of the pew in front of him didn't have a hymnbook in it. Just—he felt around in there—a green crayon, a Hot Wheels car, and a few copies of old church bulletins.

He opened one of the bulletins. Apparently the Chapel of Faith and Brotherhood needed gently used toys for the children's class. And Mary Lee Franko had given birth to a healthy baby girl named Doreen—seven pounds, five ounces. They were collecting nonperishable food items for the local food bank, and asking for the congregation to donate other useful items for the Women's Auxiliary Ramada Sale.

Sunday's service had concentrated on "Man's Role in the Universe." O'Neill snorted. Killing Goa'ulds—duh. He coulda preached that one all by himself.

He glanced sideways at Carter. She was singing quietly, sharing a book with Daniel, who was sitting on her right. Down farther on the pew sat Karen from Accounting, the invitation queen and champion Daniel devotee. How she'd finagled sitting next to Daniel had no doubt required strategy not unlike SG-1's planning and preparation in taking down a System Lord. She was just that good.

Jack palmed the items until after the song was over and people started sitting again. He sat and adjusted his suit jacket, slipping the toy car into its pocket. Then he spread the bulletin out on his thigh, flipping it over so that the empty back was showing. Using the green crayon, he drew four lines—two up and down, two across, and nudged Carter with his shoulder.

"Xs or Os?" He whispered.

She looked at him puzzled, until he tapped the paper on his leg. Those blue, blue eyes twinkled, though, as she rolled them at him. "Sir, it's _church_."

He wrote something on the paper and handed it to her.

_Chicken?_

She read it and snatched the crayon out of his hand. After a rapid scribble, she laid the paper back on his thigh. He read her note. _You wish._

He claimed the crayon again. _Then play._

He handed her the crayon, which she took with another roll of her eyes. This note took longer to write. _Sir, we're in church. Behave yourself_.

The 'church' was underlined twice.

And then she wouldn't give the crayon back.

He poked her, then spread his palm out in crayon supplication, but Carter blatantly ignored him.

Scowling at her, he reached into his pocket for the toy car. He fingered the tiny wheels, spinning them. Opened the tiny hood to reveal the tiny chrome engine. Cool. It was a Corvette—blue. Not his favorite model, but good enough to fiddle with during the boredom that was this day. He ran the car experimentally on his thigh, then up his pant leg to stop and reverse and go back down to his knee. Then it performed a great flip in the air as it jumped the gulf of his lap and landed safely on his other knee. Evel Kneivel had nothing on him!

He felt Carter nudge him and heard her whisper "Sshh." Again.

He glared at her briefly before whispering. "I'm _being_ quiet."

She widened her eyes and leaned over. "You're making engine noises."

"Nuh-uh." O'Neill was sure he hadn't.

"Sir, please." She cocked her head to one side and flattened her mouth.

Jack pursed his lips and twiddled with the car between his fingers. He put it back on his thigh and idly ran it back and forth, back and forth. Then it started doing figure eights.

So engrossed was he with his driving that he didn't see Carter look over at him again, and he didn't feel her deep sigh.

So he was completely surprised when she reached over and plucked the car out of his hands. It disappeared to wherever she'd put the crayon.

He frowned at her, knowing he was pouting, but really not caring. She raised a single eyebrow again. Her look sent him a clear warning.

Chastened, he looked down on his lap to see the church bulletin. He smoothed it with his hands and then folded it in half lengthwise, and the unfolded it. He dog-eared each upper corner, folding them inwards diagonally, then did it again, so that the paper resembled an elongated triangle. He refolded the whole thing in half, raw edges meeting in the middle, and then flipped the paper sideways and folded the pointed edges out on both sides. Creasing all the folds tightly, he held up his creation.

That was a damn—er—_darn_ fine aircraft. Holding it between his thumb and forefinger, he moved it in the air between himself and the pew in front of him. If Carter hadn't taken his crayon, he could have put the proper markings on it. As it was, he thought it was one of his better paper airplanes. Experimentally, he drew it back and then let it glide to his lap.

He reached out to pick it up, but Carter was too quick for him.

The paper airplane joined the crayon and Corvette.

Back to being bored.

He looked up. The church was older, a large rectangular-shaped building with a stage in the front. An organ sat on the far right side on the stage, and a raised podium dominated the middle. Chairs filled what he assumed would be choir loft on the left hand side. Siler stood with Mrs. Siler—holding the baby—directly in front of the podium. The pastor held a little cup of some sort, and was currently saying something. Jack couldn't really hear, didn't really care. Two other people then stood and came forward—O'Neill recognized one of them as being Major Wood from base. The woman, he didn't know.

The Pastor said some more stuff, then dabbed some of whatever was in the cup on the baby's head. Someone was taking pictures, and the flash lit up every once in a while. Everyone smiled, and then Siler and Mrs. Siler made their way to their pew and sat, as did the two back-up parents.

Jack figured it was over, so he sat up and got ready to stand. But the pastor climbed the steps to the podium and, reaching it, opened a book.

Then the man had he unmitigated audacity to introduce his sermon.

O'Neill poked the Major to his right. "You didn't say there would be preaching."

"Sir, we're in church." She whispered back at him. "What did you _think_ there would be?"

She had him there. He groaned as quietly as was possible and slumped down as much as he could in the pew.

He didn't notice that he was bouncing his leg up and down until her hand stilled it.

Just for something to do, he started bouncing it again.

This time, she flicked his knee, and it kind of hurt.

Grimacing, he turned for back up to Teal'c, but the Jaffa was still kelnorim-ing.

So he tried to sit quietly again. But even he knew that it was a lost cause.

Thinking about it, he started to blame Carter for his boredom. She'd been the one to insist that he come to this shin-dig. She'd told him he couldn't wear jeans, and she'd been the one to confiscate his Gameboy as they'd gotten out of his truck. Then she'd taken the crayon, Corvette, and his airplane.

He figured she needed to be as annoyed as he was.

So he reached over and poked her in the leg.

She glared at him and shook her head.

He waited until she was looking forward and poked her again.

This time, she slapped his hand.

He grinned. And poked her again.

Carter didn't say anything, she just reached over and grabbed his right hand—his poking hand—and threaded her fingers through his. Then she placed their joined hands on her lap.

He couldn't move without major effort.

And he didn't really want to. After all, she was freakin' _holding his hand_.

And it felt nice—her hand was warm and soft and strong. He glanced sideways at her and wondered what it meant that she was sitting with his hand gripped in her own, laying on her lap—and she was smiling some nonsensical smile that just flitted on the edges of her lips and made her eyes sparkle.

And she'd taken her shoes off again and was gently riffling the carpet fibers with her toes.

_Maybe she liked holding his hand?_ Holy Hannah.

That thought carried him through the rest of the sermon and past the final song and prayer. And when the congregation stood to leave, he found her lingering a bit in the pew, sitting just the teeniest bit longer than was necessary.

"Carter?"

"Yes, sir?" She looked over at him without a hint of self-consciousness.

"Can I have my hand back?" He sort of hoped she'd say no, but sooner or later, Hammond would walk down the aisle towards them.

"I don't know, sir, can I trust you to behave yourself?"

He cocked his head and gave her a half smile. "Carter—when can you _not_ trust me?"

She sighed and let go, and he felt oddly deflated, watching her stand, gather her shoes and put them back on.

Daniel poked his head over her shoulder. "What was that all about?"

"What was what all about?"

"You were totally holding Jack's hand."

Carter quirked a look at the Colonel. "Let's just say I was taking one for the team."

Daniel looked between the two of them with puzzled interest. "Okay. I don't know what that means."

Carter shrugged and turned back to the Colonel. "Okay, sir, hold them out."

Jack held out his hands. Carter reached into her pocket and pulled out the paper airplane, the green crayon, the Gameboy and a Snickers Bar she'd taken from him along with the Gameboy. From the other pocket she liberated his cell phone, a little electronic Tetris that he'd attached to his keys, a Koosh ball, an egg-shaped container filled with Silly Putty, and a yo-yo.

They both stared at the bounty. "Did I get it all?" Sam patted at her pockets. "I think that's all."

"Colonel O'Neill, what on Earth do you have there?" General Hammond had entered the pew in front of theirs and was staring at the pile of stuff in Jack's hands. "I certainly hope that you weren't playing with that all the way through the service."

Jack froze. He glanced at Carter and tried to look contrite. "No sir." He unceremoniously thrust it all back at the Major, who reached out purely on instinct to gather it up. "I was just holding it all for Carter here. She seemed to have a little problem sitting still."

Hammond shook his head between the both of them. "Well, I'm surprised at you, Major Carter. I would have expected that of Colonel O'Neill here, but from you—well." He looked mildly disapproving, mixed with a dram of skepticism. "I'm sure Sergeant Siler is glad that you all were here, anyway. We'll see you back on base." He nodded to each of SG-1 and then left.

O'Neill looked warily back at Carter. She glared at him through narrowed eyes. "Take one for the team, right? Isn't that what you said, Carter?" The Colonel reached out and gathered all his toys back up, sliding them into his pockets. When she still didn't speak to him, he reached out and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. "Good work, Major."

Teal'c led them out of the pew, towards the back door of the church. By then the rest of the congregation had already left, and SG-1 was left walking out of the church on their own. Daniel and Teal'c eased in front, conversing animatedly on the symbolism involved in the service they'd just witnessed. O'Neill followed close behind, with Carter bringing up the rear.

He knew she wouldn't be holding his hand again anytime soon. And he was pretty certain he wouldn't be seeing those toes again for a while.

What he wasn't expecting was the painful thunk he felt on the back of his head as they all trooped to his truck. He saw the object fall to the ground and grinned, even as he rubbed what was sure to be a lump where it had hit.

He'd forgotten about the Corvette.

As she passed him she clapped him on the shoulder. "Way to go, sir." She whacked him in exactly the same spot that the Corvette had hit. "Taking one for the team."

And it wasn't until he watched her open the door of his truck and nimbly climb into the back seat with Daniel that he thought to call after her. "Behave yourself Major! You were just in church!"


	5. It's All Geek to Me

It's All Geek to Me

"So, what're we watching?"

"I don't care." Daniel flopped down on the couch, already shoving a handful of popcorn into his mouth. He chewed exactly once before adding, "As long as it's funny."

"It does not matter to me which film we view." Teal'c stood near the couch, holding a bottle of apple juice. "As long as it contains no animals speaking in the voices of humans."

The team had long ago learned that the one thing that creeped out the big scary Jaffa was talking animals. Blood, gore, guts, and every other vice Teal'c could handle. Bambi—not so much.

"We don't have to watch anything like that, Teal'c." Sam opened up her cabinet. "I have a bunch of DVDs to choose from."

"From which to choose." The Colonel appeared next to the couch, opening a can of soda. "I have a bunch of DVDs _from which to choose_."

Sam looked back over her shoulder at him, frowning. "What's the difference?"

Jack motioned to her with the can of Pepsi. "One should never end one's sentences with a preposition."

"Why not?" Her frown deepened.

"Do you really want to know, or do you just think that I _don't_ know?"

"I'd heard that was a false grammar rule." Daniel said from around another mouthful of popcorn.

"False?" O'Neill shook his head. "I'd say—underappreciated."

"Are _any_ grammar rules appreciated?"

The Colonel paused with the can midway to his mouth. "Yes." He nodded. "Some of us appreciate all of them."

Daniel swallowed and then groaned dramatically. "Here we go."

"Watch it, Daniel." Jack's voice reflected a gentle warning.

"What?" Sam looked between the two men. "What are you two talking about?"

The Colonel plopped himself down on the couch. "Just because the two of you are science geeks—it doesn't mean that you know everything about _everything_. Let's leave it at that."

Daniel glared across the couch. "Jack—Sam and I aren't geeks."

"Uh—yeah, you are."

"I beg to differ." Daniel's eyebrows crept ever closer to his hairline. "We're just as tough as you and Teal'c are."

Teal'c snorted.

"What was that, T?" O'Neill broke into his signature smart-ass grin. He pointed at Daniel. "See Daniel? Teal'c agrees with me. Geek."

"Sam's not a geek."

"Yes, she is." O'Neill replied automatically. He had returned his attention to his can of Pepsi. "She just tempers her geekiness with hotness."

Daniel peered at Jack over the top of his glasses. "You know, you actually just said that out loud."

Sam, smiling to herself, rifled through some of the movies in her case. "Okay, you guys, if you're not going to help, I'll just pick one."

"Uh oh." O'Neill grimaced. "We can't let the girl pick."

"I wouldn't make you watch a chick flick." Still at the cabinet, Sam threw the comment over her shoulder. "I already know how you all feel about those."

"How about 'Airplane'?" O'Neill queried.

"'The Mummy'." Daniel called out.

"'Star Wars'." Teal'c always suggested the same movie.

But Sam had already extracted a DVD from her collection and removed it from the case.

"Please don't make me watch 'Star Wars' again." This from a man who wasn't afraid to make fun of a System Lord.

"Nope." Sam slid the DVD into the player and stood.

"Is it 'Airplane'?"

"No, sir."

"Then what is it?" O'Neill shoved over as Sam approached with the remote control. They always sat in the same places. Sam in the middle of the couch, Daniel on her right, and the Colonel on her left, and Teal'c sitting on the floor with his back against the big arm chair to the left of the couch.

They'd started movie nights right after Daniel had died the first time—kind of a bonding thing. When he didn't stay dead, they had just continued the gatherings. The location varied—sometimes at Jack's house, sometimes at Sam's, even once in Teal'c's quarters on base—but their seating configuration never shifted.

"You'll see, sir." She settled in, shoulder to shoulder with two of her three favorite men in the world. Her couch was slightly smaller than the Colonel's. Maybe that's why she'd suggested they meet at her house that evening. It was—cozier.

She pushed 'play'. Within a few seconds, the credits started flashing on the screen. O'Neill let out a bark of laughter, accompanied by his reaching a hand behind Sam to poke Daniel in the side of the head.

"This one's for you, buddy."

Daniel read the title on the screen. "Monty Python and the Holy Grail?"

"You said you'd never seen it."

"And I'm still not going to see it." Daniel held the popcorn out for Sam to take some. "We never actually watch these movies. You end up distracting us to the point where we can't."

"You wound me." Jack stole a piece of popcorn out of Sam's hand and threw it Daniel. He managed to hit Daniel in the forehead, and the popcorn dropped down into the recess between the archaeologist's glasses and his eye.

"Oh yeah." Daniel fished the kernel out with two fingers. "I'm _so_ off on that one. You're not annoying at _all_."

Just for good measure, Jack did it again.

"Jack—couldya stop?"

O'Neill grinned again. "I don't think so."

"Okay." Carter held out two hands to either side of her. "Boys—play nice. Let's watch the movie."

When Carter used her "mom" voice, people normally listened. Unfortunately, the Colonel wasn't normal people. He leaned into her, shoving against her shoulder with his own. "I didn't know you liked Monty Python."

"I don't, really." Sam looked over at him.

"Then why did you buy this DVD?"

She shrugged. It was a non answer, but he grinned anyway. His voice low, he quirked a brow. "Because you know I like it?"

Sam shook her head and rolled her eyes. "I can't imagine what you mean, sir."

Daniel leaned forward so that he could see them both. "I'm never going to be able to watch this if the two of you keep canoodling over there."

"Canoodling?" Jack leaned forward and fixed Daniel with a glare. "Colonels don't canoodle. Do Majors canoodle?"

Sam smiled. "I don't think so, sir." Her smile deepened into a wide grin. "At least, not without a direct order."

Daniel sat back, muttering.

Sam cast a chastising look at O'Neill, while patting Daniel's leg supportively. "Come on, guys. This is supposed to be a funny movie."

She felt O'Neill relax into the couch next to her. He stretched his long, jeans-encased legs out in front of him and, toeing his shoes off, rested his feet on her coffee table. He clasped his arms behind his head, totally relaxed.

If anything, Daniel became more tense. Just as the guy with the cart began shouting, 'Bring out your dead!' he leaned forward again. "Jack, why do you do that?"

"What?" There couldn't have been a more unconvincing picture of innocence.

"That."

"What?"

"Why do you make it your own personal quest to annoy me?" Daniel was completely serious.

Jack didn't answer immediately, but Teal'c inserted his own opinion. "I believe that O'Neill thinks that it is humorous and entertaining to make fun of and belittle you, Daniel Jackson."

Jack took umbrage. "Hey! That's not true."

Sam looked at him, a vague expression on her face. "Teal'c kind of has a point, sir."

"You, too, Carter?" O'Neill looked appalled.

Her expression said apologetic, but her nod said, "_Kind of_."

"You think I belittle Daniel?"

"You do call him a geek. Frequently."

O'Neill thrust a hand, palm up, in Daniel's direction. "Do I lie?"

"He's a scientist, sir, not a geek."

"I've called you a geek, too."

"Yes, but you also said I was hot." She blessed him with one of her more intimate smiles. "That kinda takes the sting out."

"I didn't call you hot."

"Uh—" Sam widened her eyes and inclined her head towards her commanding officer. "No disrespect intended, but I think you did, actually."

"I'm not allowed to call you hot."

"No, sir, you're not." But she wasn't too upset about it.

"Well then, being the ultra-obedient and rule conscious man that I am, I would not have, therefore, referred to you thusly."

"Yes, Jack. Yes, you did." Daniel had his face in his hands, shaking it wearily from side to side. Suddenly, he lifted his head and pointed at the Colonel. "You _called_ her hot. Not like it's a big surprise that you think so."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly what you think it means."

"Watch it, Geek."

"Jack, have you forgotten that I know things about you?" Daniel had finally pulled out his big gun. "Things that you don't want everyone else to know?" He surreptitiously indicated Sam.

"Daniel—you promised." The Colonel stilled, suddenly wary.

"I did." Daniel nodded slowly. "But that doesn't mean I can't do it anyway."

Sam stood. "Look, guys. This is supposed to be a friendly get together. What is your problem?"

"Thin-skin over here needs to man up." Jack indicated Daniel with a flourish of his hand.

"Yeah? Well you need to respect me!" Daniel leapt to his feet. "I'm kind of tired of always being made fun of!"

"I make fun of everyone, Daniel! That's just how I am!" O'Neill rose as well. "Deal with it!"

Daniel shook his head. With a quick motion of one hand, he pushed his glasses as far up on his nose as they would go. He breathed in and out rapidly—he'd finally gotten truly angry.

"Oh yeah, Jack? Well, deal with this." He turned to Sam. "You know how he's always twitting us about being geeks or nerds or whatever?"

"Daniel." Jack's warning was clear, concise.

"Did you know that this man—this tough military bad-ass—did you know that he has a Master's Degree in _Grammar_?"

Sam, still sitting on the couch, looked up at the Colonel in shock. Her blue eyes, already huge with concern, widened even further. She absorbed the information in around a nanosecond, though, and then erupted into laughter like a volcano explodes into flame. She looked from Daniel, white-faced and livid, to the Colonel, whose neck had flushed red, and laughed even louder.

She folded her hands over her stomach and fell over sideways on the couch, wiping tears away from her eyes. "Grammar!" She actually snorted. "That's the funniest thing I've ever heard!"

"For the record, Major, it was actually Literary Theory and Composition."

"Literary—" She snorted again, doubling over. "And this from a guy who refuses to write mission reports!"

Jack and Daniel stared at her as if she'd lost her mind. Daniel bit his lip. Jack ran a hand down his face. They looked at each other, and then back at her. She was turning pink from her hysterics—tears poured down her face. It looked like it hurt.

And still she laughed.

"You're a bigger geek than either of us! Grammar—that's what—apostrophes and which verb tense to use? And here you are traipsing around the universe spouting strategy and killing aliens? And you actually spent time in school—no, even better—in _graduate_ school—studying _Grammar_?" Eventually her cackling subsided into minor guffaws, and then giggles, and then she lay, exhausted and spent, on the sofa.

"Oh man." She breathed out a chuckle. "That's the funniest thing I've _ever_ heard."

"It's really—uh—not that entertaining." The Colonel raised a hand to scratch absently at his ear. "And it was interesting." His voice was plaintive.

"How'd you find out, Daniel?" She wiped her eyes on the back of her hand, then brought her hand back to clean up mascara with the pad of her thumb.

The archaeologist pursed his lip and shot a look sideways at the Colonel. "After Abydos, I stayed with Jack. He was on base one day—he'd gone without me—and I happened to find his thesis."

"He was _snooping_." Jack pointed out.

"You have one book shelf, Jack, it was out in plain sight."

"What was the topic?" Sam just _had_ to know.

"Oh yes—Jack—tell her. Maybe she'll wig out again." Daniel grinned. Looking at Sam, he widened his eyes. "This is good—just wait for it."

The Colonel clammed up. His lips thinned to the point of non-existence.

"Jack. Come on. Spill." Daniel fixed a look on the older man. "Jack."

"I'm not saying."

"Come on. You owe me. For how many years have you made fun of me?"

"Obviously not many enough."

"Jack."

"Daniel."

Daniel turned to Sam. "His thesis was entitled, 'Inherent Strategy: Analyzing Innate Militaristic Ability in the _Wizard of Oz_." He used finger quotes and a huge grin, and waited for her to blow up again.

To Daniel's shock, Sam sat herself up on the couch. "That actually sounds kind of intriguing." She furrowed her brows in thought. "Innate militaristic ability as in—that of Dorothy and her friends?"

Jack raised his head and speared Daniel with a look of such gloating that Daniel threw his hands up in the air and turned in a circle.

"Oh, come _on_!"

"No Daniel—did you read it? It sounds really interesting. I never would have thought about it that way. They go through much more in the book than they do in the movie. What did you cite?"

"Patton."

"Of course."

"Clausewitz, a little Churchill—you know, this and that." He shoved his hands into his pockets, shifting his weight to stand more comfortably.

"Did it get psychiatric?"

"Not so much. Mostly referenced other similar works to find models and archetypes. Other characters in circumstances that lead them to engage their own inherent or latent strategic ability."

"Wow." Carter was looking at him like she'd never done before—he felt kind of smart. "Well, sir. Never let it be said that you aren't a man of many facets."

"Faucets? I'm not a plumber." He caught Daniel's eye and winked. Daniel rolled his back at the Colonel, who simply returned to his previous position on the couch—triumph in every move he made. "Just a lowly old military man."

Daniel pointed. "Just a lowly _Geeky_ old military man." He raised his eyebrows. "Face it, Jack, you're like us. Me and Sam. You're _one of us_."

Jack shrugged. "Whatever."

Teal'c had been watching the entire exchange with an expression of mollified sufferance on his face. He stood, holding his empty apple juice bottle in front of him like a shield.

"Indeed, you are all three alike in many ways, Daniel Jackson."

"Oh? What are you saying, Teal'c?"

"I believe that you have already expressed my sentiments adequately. The three of you are in many ways similar. I appear to be the one who is different in more than just race and ancestry."

"Oh, come on, T. You're part of the team." O'Neill waved off his statement impatiently. "Whatcha talking about?"

"I am part of the team, O'Neill. However, I seem to be set apart from you three in a way that is insurmountable."

Teal'c enjoyed the pregnant pause briefly before drawing himself up to his full height and canting one brow upward.

"I seem to be the only one here who is _not_ a Geek."


	6. Capes and Tights

_Capes and Tights_

"Yes, I did."

"No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did."

"No, you didn't."

"Jack. Yes, I _did_."

"For the last time—you did _not_."

Jack sat on the gurney, bare to the waist. What was left of his shirt lay on the floor.

"I did so, Jack. You were there one minute, and then you were hanging off the edge of the cliff, and yelling for Teal'c, who—by the way—was totally not listening to you—and then I came over and I saved your butt."

The Colonel scowled petulantly. "I don't remember it that way."

"What, the screaming like a girl for Teal'c part, or the part where I saved your butt?"

"None of it." He turned and glared at Daniel over his shoulder. "I remember none of it that way."

Doctor Fraiser approached the Colonel with a tray covered with a blue cloth. "Okay, Colonel. Let's get you fixed up." She set the tray on the gurney next to O'Neill and then looked around for her stool. It sat on the other side of the room. She headed for it, but not without giving her pouting patient a stern look. "Don't touch anything, Colonel. Or I'll get out the _really_ big needles."

Jack stared at the tray sullenly. "Sure. Take all the fun out of it."

Daniel smiled at Janet as she passed. "Hey, Janet. Did you hear that I saved Jack's life?"

"I did." The little captain beamed at the archaeologist. "Congratulations."

"I snatched him right out of the air!" Daniel continued. "Right from the brink!"

Janet pushed the stool back over in front of O'Neill's gurney. Sitting, she busied herself with snapping on some exam gloves and uncovering the tray. "Haven't I heard that phrase somewhere before?"

"I dunno." Daniel said. A nurse had approached him with another tray. His glee turned to wariness. "Hey, Janet. What's this?"

"I know that you didn't actually get injured on P5D-897, but your chart says you're due for your Gamma Globulin." She paused as she perused Jack's chest. "So I'm having Lieutenant Walling give you one."

"Well." Daniel stared in trepidation as the nurse put on her own gloves. "That sucks."

"You need it, Daniel."

"Yeah, I know, but I _hate_ that shot."

"I don't know anyone that likes it." Janet pulled out a flashlight to better study the wound on the Colonel's abdomen.

"Well, yeah, because it hurts. It feels like you're injecting _stew_."

"Well, they do call it the Peanut Butter shot." She gently probed around the wound. "Colonel, it looks like there's something in here."

Jack looked down. "I told ya."

Daniel watched as the nurse prepared the syringe. "It already hurts."

"You'll be fine, Daniel." The doctor reassured him placidly.

"Janet, isn't there a better method of giving this one? An oral dose or an IV?"

Janet looked up from the Colonel's stomach and peered around his body at Daniel. "You'd rather have an IV?"

"I hate this shot."

"Hop down." Lieutenant Walling motioned for Daniel to stand.

"I save the life of the most manly man on base, the biggest hero in the Galaxy, and _this_ is the thanks I get?"

"Turn." The Lieutenant flicked at the syringe with her index finger, shaking all the air to the surface.

"You think you finally earn some respect, and then someone pokes you in the butt with a needle the size of a Buick."

"Yeah, well, Daniel, balls bounce, cookies crumble."

"Jack babbles." Daniel stated. "Jack whines. Jack wreaks havoc on clichés."

The doctor made a sound in her throat, and then erupted with, "Emperor's New Groove."

"What?" Both Jack and Daniel returned their attention to Doc Fraiser.

"Emperor's New Groove. David Spade, John Gooman, Eartha Kitt." She doused a huge swab with iodine and started cleaning away the dirt on the wound.

"What about it?" Daniel asked the question.

"That's where that line is from. The Emperor's New Groove. Guy turns into a llama, and he has to get back to the castle. Hilarity ensues."

"Doesn't sound all that funny." Jack spoke from around clenched teeth. It wasn't true what they said—you never got used to pain.

"It's cute." Janet wet a piece of gauze for a particularly stubborn piece of grit. "Cassie wanted to watch it."

"She's what, thirteen years old?"

"Almost. The other kids in middle school keep quoting movies, and she hadn't seen any of them. So we're renting all these movies and watching them together." She reached for her tweezers. "Kind of like Earth homework."

"Wow. I hadn't thought of that. She's missed all that stuff—Sesame Street, Barney, the Teletubbies—"

"That's disturbing, Daniel, how do _you_ know about those shows?" O'Neill tried to ignore the fact that the swab was cleaning him from the inside. Yuck.

"I'm current on my popular culture."

"Yes, well." Janet continued. "Apparently nobody was going to believe that Walt Disney and his minions hadn't invaded Toronto, too, so we've been studying up."

"Drop your pants, Daniel." The Lieutenant looked like she'd been waiting a while to say that line. Daniel glared at her suspiciously.

Obedient, however, he hopped off the gurney and unbuttoned his pants. He jerked his head toward the curtain that ran on a track around the exam area. "Could I have some privacy, at least?"

"You're fine, Daniel. Just imagine you're living with the tribesmen of Gumby and they're all naked, too." Jack stared at the wall, trying assiduously not to study the swab moving back and forth under his skin.

"Funny, Jack." But Daniel's tone said that it really wasn't.

Daniel's nurse reached up and yanked the curtain partially closed. At least he wasn't visible from the entry door, any more. He unzipped and turned, lowering his pants to mid thigh. Then, he crossed one leg over the other, leaving the crossed leg as slack as possible.

He waited as the Lieutenant swabbed his bare backside with an alcohol laced cotton ball, and then blew on it to dry it off a little. He couldn't help but laugh. That part always tickled.

Doctor Fraiser pulled a little needle from her tray. "I'm just going to numb you up, sir."

"Can I be numbed up, too?" Daniel asked from behind his curtain.

"You'll be fine, Daniel." Ever patient, Janet rarely lost her cool with Daniel.

His answer was a sharp intake of breath, followed by something that sounded like a goat in labor.

"That sounded fun, Daniel. Can I be next?" Jack's face was screwed up, not watching as Janet fished tiny bits of twig and dirt out from under his skin. "Please?"

"You'll get your turn, Jack." There were zipping sounds, and then Daniel emerged out from around the curtain. Nurse Walling passed in front of him, carrying her tray, a sly smile on her face. He raised a brow at her and looked at her from over the rims of his glasses. "Was it good for you, too?"

The Lieutenant laughed and shrugged as she left the infirmary. As she passed through the door, Daniel was sure he heard her say something about having a cigarette.

He crossed to lean gingerly on the empty bed on the other side of O'Neill. "I swear they _like_ doing that."

"It's because they think you have a cute tush, Dr. Jackson." Janet pulled a large bit of debris out of the wound. "Wow. I think that's an entire branch."

"It was a nasty cliff." The Colonel explained.

"Which you just—walked over?" Her skepticism lay obvious in her words.

"It was kinda hard to see it."

"How do you miss a cliff, Colonel? It's like—the edge of a mountain."

Daniel grinned. "Yeah, Jack, why don't you tell her?"

"No."

"Come on, Jack O'Neill, intrepid and courageous soldier." Daniel grinned widely. "Why don't you tell her?"

"I don't want to." Jack watched as something else—a leaf?—was pulled from the abrasion on his stomach.

"See, Janet. On 897 there are these little critters."

"Not so little." The Colonel pointed out. "And they had teeth. Huge teeth."

"Okay, they did have the teeth, but they were the size of—a Maltese, or a small Poodle."

"German Shepherds." Jack winced as she probed around with the swab. "_Big_ German Shepherds."

"Whatever." Daniel shifted. His butt was already starting to hurt from the shot. "Anyhoo—Jack was looking at the Monolith."

"And by Monolith, he means _rock_."

"It had been carved by the Ancients."

"It was a rock."

"Okay—rock. He was looking at the rock, and he tries to move it, and one of these little critters jumps out of the bushes and starts running after him."

"Thing had to have weighed a hundred pounds." Jack gestured at the doctor as if to emphasize his point.

"Colonel, you need to hold still. I'm trying to get the rest of this out. I don't want it to become infected."

"Yeah, shut up, Jack. I'll finish this story."

"Be nice, Daniel." Janet had gotten the Parental Warning Voice down soon after she'd acquired Cassie.

"Whatever." He shifted again. Those shots were pure evil. "So Jack is standing there with this huge gun, right? He's a great shot—but instead of sighting the thing and taking it out, he starts jumping around and screaming—'Where'd it go? Where'd it go?'"

"I—"

"Colonel." The doctor placed a hand on his chest. "Please—hold still."

"So there's Jack O'Neill—the bravest guy in the universe, running around in circles, holding his P-90 above his head shrieking, 'Get it! Get it!' to _Nobody_!" Daniel was thoroughly enjoying himself. "Teal'c was on the other side of the clearing, and Sam was examining something at the monument. The Monolith—"

"Rock!"

"The _rock_ was way over there." He gestured with one hand towards his curtained exam area. "So he's running around, looking behind him for the critter."

"Evil, snarling, _growling_ critter." O'Neill added.

"Colonel, do I have to send him away?"

"Please? Would you?" Jack steepled his brows, pleading for mercy. "Could you?"

And yet Daniel continued. "And as he's looking behind him, trying to find out where the thing is—Poof!—over the side he goes."

"I did not poof. I never poof. Not once in my life have I ever gone Poof."

"Sir, you need to hold still." Janet looked at him with her best Napoleon face. "Really."

"And I'm over at the Monolith-rock, and I see him disappear, because I've been watching him dance around this beast, and so I run over and crawl to the edge, and there he is."

"Was there a ledge?"

"Kind of."

"What do you mean, 'kind of'?" She reached for the tweezers again. More twigs.

"He'd landed on a root."

"Sticking out of the side of the mountain?"

"Straight out."

"You mean—"

"I do. He was not only calling for Teal'c, he was singing. Soprano."

Janet looked up at the Colonel. "Wow. Ouch. Why didn't you tell me that?"

"I was afraid you'd try to get the debris out of it." Jack glared at her.

Janet ducked her head, hiding a smile. "Go on, Daniel."

"Oh yes. Please." The Colonel grunted. "Do."

"So I reach out a hand, but I can't reach, so I run back to my pack and get some rope. I tie this really great knot I learned while I was studying some Inca ruins in South America, and I lower the knot down to him, and secure the other end of the rope around my body."

"I'm being chased down mountain sides by huge snarling beasts, and Daniel's playing Boy Scout."

"Yeah, and lucky you, Jack, because the root starts to slip—obviously it can't handle the weight of Jack on it."

"Yes." Jack cast a look heavenward. "Not many things can handle the weight of _Jack_."

Daniel rolled his eyes and hurried on. "And he grabs the knot just as the root gives way. So he's swinging on the knot, and I'm pulling on the rope, and I get him to the edge, and drag him over. And we both start running back toward the Monolith—"

"Rock!"

"—Because we can hear that something's happening there, and when the root gives way, the whole side of the mountain falls down into the ravine!"

Janet looked up from her work. "Really?" She turned and looked at Daniel, newfound respect on her face. "That's incredible, Dr. Jackson. Amazing."

"Why, thank you." Daniel hopped up onto the exam bed, but landed wrong on the injection site. Grinding out a curse, he scoots back off. "And for all this heroism, what do I get? A shot in the butt."

Doc Fraiser nodded. "An _important_ shot in the butt."

"So. See? I snatched him right from the brink! I'm a hero!"

"You're a something." Jack retorted.

"They should give me a medal. A cape."

"Daniel, I'll happily buy you a leotard and some tights." Jack glanced down at where Janet was bathing the entire wound with some kind of solution. It was cold, but it didn't hurt. "But I think that you probably already own some."

Daniel blithely ignored him. "You know, in some cultures, you would now owe me your life."

"How so?"

"Well, if you save a person's life, that person owes it to you—you kind of end up owning the person you saved."

"Good thing we don't live in one of those cultures."

"Yeah. I guess." Daniel shifted again. "But it would be nice of you to say thanks."

O'Neill grunted.

Janet took one last swab with a piece of gauze and then expertly taped up the Colonel's abdomen. "No sit ups, no heavy lifting. Keep that wound clean and dry, and come back tomorrow and we'll clean it up again if necessary." She stood, yanking off the gloves. "Daniel—I mean it—that was a really cool thing you did. Really. I'm impressed."

Daniel grinned. "It's nothing. Truly. Just doing my job."

Janet laughed. "Okay, then. Tylenol if your butt starts hurting, and you, Sir—pick up your prescription at the desk in around an hour." She patted Daniel's arm. "Really—awesome."

Daniel beamed at her.

AS she left, he turned to Jack, who still sat, unmoving, on the gurney.

"Lunch?"

"Yeah-let's go find Carter and Teal'c."

"Locker rooms, is my guess."

"Probably."

Daniel headed out towards the door, but O'Neill caught at his arm. "Hey, Daniel."

"Yeah, Jack?"

The Colonel looked at him steadily, sincerely. "Thank you."

A slow, broad grin stretched across Daniel's face. Meeting Jack's look, he scrunched up his mouth and shrugged.

"Don't worry about it." He said, gesturing toward the door. "It was nothing."


	7. Winkie Blinkies

Winkie Blinkies

"So, Carter," O'Neill pushed off from the lab table where he'd been leaning.

They'd been back from M8T-wherever for nearly three hours, and he'd already exhausted his list of things that interested him. So he'd come into the lab to 'help' Carter.

"Do you actually know what all these things do?"

"What things, sir?"

"All this—stuff." He threw a hand out and indicated the instruments scattered around her lab. "It looks like Lite Brite spawned in here."

Major Carter sat up in her chair and looked around. She scowled. "You know, I have never really thought about it, but yeah. There are a lot of different things in here."

"See? Like for example—what does this one do?" The Colonel pointed at a machine attached to a wall. "It's just a big box with winkie light bulbs all over it."

"That one monitors the power outgo to the 'Gate and incoming levels of radiation."

"Radiation?"

"Well, yeah. Every time the 'Gate opens, there's the possibility of varying degrees of radiation spreading throughout the base." She pointed at the lower set of lights. "See how there are 20 red lights in this bank?"

He looked around her shoulder. "Yeah."

"Well, if the radiation levels are low, then only two or four of the lights will light up. If a more moderate lever is detected, then there will be 10 or twelve lights on. It varies. Suffice it to say, sir, that the more lights are on, the worse the radiation is inside the SGC."

"And if we're on radiation over load?"

"Then anywhere from sixteen to twenty lights will be lit."

O'Neill glared at the twin rows of lights. "And how much is too much?"

"Enough to have carcinogenic properties—and that's often enough to kill." Carter turned away from him and resituated herself at her microscope. "But you don't have to worry about it, sir, because those lights will tell us when it's time to evacuate."

She fit her face to the eyepiece again, rearranging the slide on the stage. O'Neill watched her fiddle with the various knobs of the device, making the arm lower towards the slide. She breathed shallowly, her intense focus on the slide, making slight adjustments as needed.

O'Neill turned back around to look at the box of lights.

"Don't you think that there are better places for this kind of an important machine? Say—in the control room?"

Carter looked up from her microscope again. "There are some in there, too, sir. But those monitors are merely the sensors—these machines in here actually calculate the levels and send out alert signals to the monitors if necessary."

He looked at the lights again, as if he could assess their value.

"What do those do?" He pointed at another bank of lights, which was accompanied by a display of some sort that kept spitting out numbers. "That one's got a screen."

"Uh—" Sam turned around to see which one he was indicating. "That one measures electromagnetic pulses. See? The low number there means that the pulses aren't strong anywhere on base. They surge every once in a while, though, and then we can know when to give extra protection to various key systems on the base."

"Protection."

"Yes, sir. Electronic devices, such as the dialing computer and the monitors in the infirmary, don't perform well, or sometimes at all, when hit by an EM pulse. We monitor those, as well, so that we can protect key systems."

"Oh. Wow." The Colonel tapped the screen with his finger. "Good thing."

"Yes, sir."

"That's important, then"

"Yes, sir." She smiled. "Okay, sir? Anything else? Because if not, I really wanted to get a better look at this."

"Go ahead." His voice reeked of indifference.

He moved over to another bank of lights. This one was set into an identical machine. It looked just like the other bank of lights, except that it was multicolored instead of all red. "What do these lights do?"

Sam looked up. "Uh—those." She thought for a moment. "The ones on the left measure detectable sound waves coming out of the 'Gateroom. It's basically a super radio receiver, capable of retrieving large amounts of data from all matter of radio waves."

"What kind of data?"

"Well, seeing that radio waves are part of the electromagnetic spectrum, they can contain information that can be used for navigation, communication, and computer networking. Again, sensors in the 'Gateroom have been set up so that we can monitor any and all radio waves coming in through the wormhole and this machine sorts them out and saves them to computer files so that we can try to decipher them and figure out what they are saying."

"Interstellar FM?"

"Kind of." She smiled indulgently, fighting the urge to roll her eyes.

"Kind of what?" Daniel walked in, carrying his usual stack of books. Looking from the uncharacteristically interested look on the Colonel's face to the equally odd expression of annoyance on Sam's, he repeated his question. "Kind of what?"

"Carter here's telling me all about these machines."

Daniel narrowed his eyes and peered at her from over the top of his frames. "What are you telling him?"

"Well." Sam sighed and shoved herself away from the microscope again. "We've talked about the radiation sensors and the radio wave decoding system."

The Colonel whacked Daniel on the shoulder with the back of his hand. "You know, like Little Orphan Annie's decoder pin."

"What?"

The Colonel turned towards Daniel. "You know—that movie—the Christmas one where the little kid wants the BB gun."

"A Christmas Story?" Sam shook her head, her face a picture of confusion. "What does—"

"Yeah—great flick. Anyway, so this kid has been drinking Tang—"

"Ovaltine." Sam corrected.

"Yeah—Ovaltine—whatever—and he's been saving labels or something, so he sends away for this Little Orphan Annie decoder pin. And it finally arrives, and he goes into the bathroom to decipher the code and it's just a commercial—you know that movie, right?"

"I thought you said that the kid wanted a BB gun." Daniel shook his head. "Does he get the gun for drinking the Tang?"

"Ovaltine." Sam corrected again.

"Whatever."

"No, his dad gets it for him at the end. He shoots his eye out."

"Way to ruin the movie for him, sir."

"What? Oh—yeah." O'Neill shrugged and tried to look apologetic. "Sorry about that."

"For what are you remorseful, O'Neill?" Teal'c spoke from the open door of the laboratory, holding a bunch of bananas.

"I told Daniel the end of a movie that he hasn't seen."

"On Chulak, that would, indeed, be reason for a battle to the death."

Three set of eyes stared at the Jaffa. Blithely, he rounded the table and found Sam's extra chair where she hid it behind yet another cabinet full of seemingly random lights. He pulled it out with one hand while setting his bananas on the lab table top with the other. Sitting, he removed a banana from the bunch and peeled it.

"You know, Teal'c—I still can't figure out when you're trying to be sarcastic and when you're being serious."

Teal'c looked at the Colonel, frankly appraising. "Indeed." And then he actually kind of smiled before decapitating the banana.

Jack turned to Daniel. "What did that mean?"

Daniel shrugged. "Not a clue."

"Ancient Jaffa saying?"

"Could be." Daniel shrugged. "But somehow, I think not."

Sam looked at the men in her lab. With a patience she didn't feel, she asked, "Guys, what are you doing here? I mean, don't you all have things that you need to be doing? Other things—things _not_ involving my lab?"

"Apparently, Carter wants us to go somewhere else to play." The Colonel leaned back down over the table, resting his forearms on a pile of papers.

"It's not that, sir," Sam grimaced. It's just that I really need to get these slides analyzed for Dr. Lee."

"I'm sorry." Daniel ran a hand through his hair. "I'm still stuck on Little Orphan Annie."

"Oh—the pin." The Colonel fingered some of the papers he was leaning on. "Well, it's a decoder pin. It's got numbers assigned to letters—and then some guy on the radio would read out a list of numbers with a clue, and the kids could decipher the code."

Daniel stared at Jack for a long, wondering minute. "What did _that_ have to do with _anything_?"

"Well," O'Neill indicated Carter with a jab of his thumb. "She said 'decoder'."

"So I had to listen to that whole story about this Kool-Aid drinking kid wanting a weapon for Christmas because Sam said, 'decoder'?" His fingers formed quote marks.

"Pretty much." The Colonel shrugged. "And it was Tang."

"Ovaltine." Sam muttered from behind her microscope.

Teal'c had finished his first banana and was starting on a second. Before he brought the fruit to his mouth, however, he cocked a brow. "I believe the child's desire for a weapon to be a positive one. Every young person should strive to be self-defensive. Especially those living in a world where so many are orphaned so young, as was Little Annie."

"Yes, well. Tough times." Jack stood upright again. "So, Daniel, what are you in here for?"

"I found something pertinent to Sam's research." Daniel held up his pile of books. "What are _you_ in here for?"

"I was bored."

"I figured." Daniel scooched past the Colonel to stand by Sam's side. "I brought the books you asked for, Sam."

"Thanks. Can you put them over there?" Sam motioned towards a less crowded table behind her. Daniel crossed to it and set the pile down, steadying it briefly before returning to the lab table.

He watched Teal'c consume another banana practically whole, and then reach for one of the remaining bananas on the stalk. "You know, Teal'c, I have to ask why you're eating bananas by the dozen."

"Because their taste is very pleasing to me, and their texture interesting on my tongue." The resident Jaffa broke open the peel. "One needs no other reason to consume anything."

"Okay then." Daniel turned his attention back to Sam, who had multiplied the magnification on her scope. "What exactly are you looking at?"

"Pieces of the 'Gate."

"The 'Gate's falling apart?" O'Neill rounded her, then peered over her shoulder at the slide on the little table. "Is that dangerous?"

Sam lifted her head once again from her microscope. "No, sir." She said, visibly forcing herself to un-tense her shoulders. "The 'Gate isn't falling apart."

"Then why are there pieces of it on your doohickey there?"

"They're only microscopic pieces, and they've sloughed off because of the slight contact that the iris has with the 'Gate. We're trying to figure out exactly how much of this residue is 'Gate and how much is iris."

"Oh." He didn't sound even remotely satisfied with the answer.

"The real question is, Jack, why are you so interested in all this? Normally, if someone mentions something having to do with science, you start foaming at the mouth and a hump sprouts from your back." Daniel rested one hand on the lab table and stared at the Colonel.

"I just figured it was time to take an interest in this kind of stuff."

"Why?" Daniel persisted.

"Because."

"Because why?"

"I don't know, Daniel. I just wanted to know."

Daniel grinned and pointed at the Colonel. "You're tired of not understanding what we're talking about."

"I understand every word."

"No, you don't."

"Yes, I do."

"Then tell me what _that_ does." He crossed to a specific light bank and jabbed his finger at it. "Go on."

"I told you I understood _words_, not all these winkie blinkie lights that are in here."

"Winkie blinkie?"

"Yes, Daniel." Jack threw his hands out towards the various and sundry lights. "They wink, they blink. Ergo, winkie blinkies."

Sam looked up yet again. "Guys—sir. I really do have to get this analysis done. If you want to argue, you're welcome to do it in Daniel's lab. Or in the gym. Or in the mess. Or anywhere _other_ than here."

"Great, Daniel, now you got us kicked out."

"You're the one denigrating the integrity of Sam's equipment."

"I'm not immigrating anything!"

"_Denigrating_, not immigrating! I thought you said you could understand whatever we said."

"I said _understand_, Daniel, not _repeat_."

Teal'c rose suddenly, gathered up his banana peels, and threw them unceremoniously into the garbage can at the end of the table. "If you are finished annoying Major Carter, Colonel O'Neill, I would be happy to join you in the game room for a rousing bout of ping-pong."

Jack glared at Daniel, then cast a lingering look around the lab. "Okay, T. That sounds better than staying in here being bored to death."

As the Colonel preceded Teal'c out of the lab, Sam looked up at the Jaffa with gratitude. "Thanks, Teal'c."

The big man inclined his head and smiled slightly. "Indeed you are most welcome, Major Carter."

Daniel waved as they disappeared into the hall.

Silence fell through the lab for a few more minutes, until Daniel finally spoke. "So, what does all this stuff really do?"

"Just what I told the Colonel it does."

"Really?" Daniel canted his head, peering out at her from narrowed eyes. His skeptical face, O'Neill called it. "They actually do stuff, huh?"

"Yes, Daniel. The lights and monitors actually do stuff."

"Sam," Daniel grinned and caught her eye. "Really?"

"Well, mostly." Her eyes widened as she perused all the lights and flashing things surrounding her. "Those ones I said—those are real. They really do what I said."

"And the rest?"

"Honestly?" Sam caught Daniel's gaze. "Promise you won't tell?"

"Why would I tell, Sam?"

"I don't know." She tilted her head to one side. "Sometimes guys just want to stick together."

"Jack's not a guy—he's an overgrown kid with a P-90."

Sam smiled at that and stood, crossing to a large box that hung on one wall. "Well, we've been doing this for a few years now. It's kind of a secret between me, Teal'c, and Janet."

"Conspiracy. Oooh."

"Not like that, Daniel. Self preservation." Sam reached under the box and felt for the release, triggered it, and then opened the box like a refrigerator.

Daniel had joined her. When she stepped away from the opening, he peered in.

"You're kidding." He laughed and shook his head.

"We call it The Vault."

Daniel perused the sheer quantity of yo-yos, koosh balls, trick pens, fake flowers, decks of cards, and other toys. There were plastic glasses with fake noses attached, juggling balls, and even a few hacky sacks. "You know, he _will _find out about this some day."

"I know, but in the mean time, we'll just keep taking them when the opportunity arises, and then we have a few more minutes of sanity before he gets himself something new and we want to strangle him with his own yo-yo string again."

"Win win." Daniel could totally see the value in the Vault.

Sam grinned and closed the door back up. "_Definitely_ win win."

Daniel grinned and raised a hand to the glowing box in the corner. "All hail the Winkie blinkie Vault of SGC Sanity."

Sam smiled even more widely. "Winkie blinkies, indeed."


	8. Celebrity Mole

_Celebrity Mole_

"Leg."

"No."

"Arm."

"No."

"Neck."

"Nope."

"The back of your neck."

"Not that I know of."

"Wrist?"

"Nada."

"The other one?"

"Nothing there, either."

"C'mon, Carter, just tell me already!"

They'd reached the door that led into the briefing room, where their team meeting had been scheduled with General Hammond. Carter turned to the Colonel. "I am _not_ going to tell you, sir. Now, can we just drop it?"

O'Neill narrowed his eyes. Frowning, he regarded her steadily for two, three beats. Then he took a deep breath, pointed at her feet, and said, "Ankle."

The Major rolled her eyes. Head shaking, she shoved past him and headed towards her customary seat near the middle of the table, facing the blast glass.

The Colonel circled the table, considering. He chose the seat directly across from her.

"Sir." She tried her best to sound like his mother. She had set down her mission file and was preparing the handouts she'd written about the planet they were scheduled to visit.

"Knees."

"There's only one of them—it—sir."

"So?"

"So it can only be on one."

"Only one of what?" Daniel asked. He walked to the table and sat down next to Sam. Looking with interest between his two team mates, he asked again, "Only one of what?"

"Mole."

"Oh, good grief, Jack—are you still going on about that?" Daniel flopped backwards in his seat with an air of weariness that reflected exactly how many times they'd already had this conversation. "I mean—she doesn't want to tell us. Can't you just leave it at that?"

"Can I?" The Colonel thought about it, leaning back in his chair, fingering a pen. Abruptly, he made his decision, snapping back forward towards the table and leaning himself over, grinning. "Thing is, I don't think I can."

"There seem to be a great many things that you cannot do, O'Neill." Teal'c had arrived. He stalked silently past the General's chair and rounded to the Colonel's side of the table. Withdrawing the chair, he sat with his customary controlled manner. "Which of them are we discussing at this time?"

"His inability to stop asking Sam where her mole is." Daniel ran a hand through his hair, then leaned his weight on one arm, his chin on his fist. "She doesn't want to say."

"I can understand that," Teal'c nodded, one eyebrow raised knowingly. "As I would prefer that one such as O'Neill _not_ know the location in which I had such a mark."

Jack turned to him, suspicious. "T—are you saying that you know where it is?"

"Where what is, O'Neill?"

"Carter's mole."

"Indeed, I do."

"Teal'c! You promised you wouldn't say anything." Sam jumped forward in her seat, hands flat and tight on the table in front or her. "Remember? You promised."

Teal'c lifted the corner of his mouth, regarding the Major with superior eyes. "I merely promised you that I would not divulge the location of this mark. I never stated implicitly that I would not infer that I was aware of the vicinity in which the mark existed."

"Well, you knew it existed—we all knew it existed." Daniel flipped open his mission file, rifling through the pages. "Sam _told _us it existed."

"Yeah, but knowing it's _there_ doesn't help unless you know where in _there_ the _there_ is." The Colonel gestured vaguely at Carter.

"Help, who, sir? Help me keep some vestige of my dignity, or help you get a new weapon to torture me with?"

"I don't torture you." The Colonel shook his head.

"Yes, you do."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do, sir." Carter's voice had taken on a rough edge—much as it did whenever Siler got too close to one of her winkie blinkie arrays with his big wrench.

"No, I don't." The Colonel tried to portray 'innocence', but only succeeded in portraying 'slightly guilty—but kinda sorry about it'. "When have I ever tortured you?"

"Shall I list them off, sir?"

"List away, Major."

"Nareem, tank top wound, blue dress, bad leg-setting skills, getting Tok'ra'ed, Martouf, whacking General Hammond upside the head while you guys were all Hathored up, and then there was that whole Jonas thing—"

O'Neill cast her a look of unveiled amazement. "I have never—"

"Oh, please, Colonel, you _live_ on this stuff."

"What does he live on?" General Hammond had arrived. He entered from his office door, crossed to his chair, and sat, scooting in before opening the folder on the table in front of him. "As far as I can tell, he lives on Fruit Loops and audacity, but I might be wrong."

Carter grinned, ducking her head to hide it as best she could from the Colonel. O'Neill glared at her from behind his raised file. He glanced at the General, ascertained that their CO was involved with the report in front of him, and then turned his own folder sidewise, creating a wall between his own seat and Hammond's. "I don't torture you. It's good-natured teasing."

"Whatever." Sam's eyes rolled towards the ceiling, and she let out a long-suffering sigh. "You keep thinking those happy thoughts, sir."

The Colonel looked genuinely taken aback. "Aren't we a bit snarky today?"

Sam simply fumed.

Hammond glanced around at the team. "I seem to be sensing a bit of a rift here. Are we sure that you're all capable of behaving yourselves off world today?"

"I am, General Hammond. You have no need to doubt my ability to conduct myself with honor." Teal'c inclined his head.

"Me too, General. I'm not like these two." Daniel raised his hand with a half-hearted motion, then, seeing the look on Sam's face, used it to push the glasses up on his nose.

A long pause punctuated Daniel. A long, long pause. Sam quirked her mouth to one side, puckering her lips.

Daniel tried to rectify the situation. "I mean—not that they're constantly misbehaving, which couldn't be further from the truth—they just like to tease each other—you know, friendly banter. Between co-workers. Who work together."

Hammond scowled, his bald head pivoted between the Colonel and the Major. "Somehow, I would have expected that the two of you would be more circumspect—comporting yourselves as officers of this great nation's Air Force."

"Yes, sir." Sam ducked her head, and Daniel, just looking at her, knew that soon, he would hurt somewhere.

"Sorry, General." Jack glared at the archaeologist, too.

"Then, let's get this briefing going." Hammond removed the first page in the file. "Now, which planet was this again?"

Daniel started the introductory phase of the briefing, standing up at the appropriate time and crossing to the monitor to explain some video the MALP had taken of some carvings.

The Colonel's attention was on his second in command, however. He could see her throat, her face, and her hands, from where she sat. Everything else was covered up with BDUs. Ankles? She'd told him 'no', but she wasn't above lying, was she?

Casually, he yawned, holding his pen between two fingers. At the zenith of his yawn, both arms outstretched, he dropped the pen. He shrugged self-deprecatingly, then leaned over to pick up the pen. He ducked his head under the table, trying to see if her ankles were visible or if she'd covered them up with socks. It was dark under there, so he scooted his chair forward, burrowing himself farther underneath. He could just make out hems of pant legs, tops of shoes, and then she moved, and the swivel post of her chair hid her crossed legs.

Well, crap.

He scooted sideways, waggling his butt in the chair to edge it over further, but just when he got to the point where he could see something, she stretched her legs out in front of her.

Son of a gun.

He waggled the other way, but Daniel's shadow fell across her from that vantage point, and he still couldn't see anything clearly.

Double crap. Something caught the corner of his eye, and he reached for it. Hey, at least he'd found his pen.

He headed backwards out from under the table, scooting his chair with his heels, bent at the waist. He thought he'd cleared the edge and started to sit up, but ended up bonking the back of his head on the underside of the table with a decided 'thud'.

"Colonel—are you all right?"

Jack rubbed the back of his head, shoved himself the rest of the way out, and sat up, grimacing. "Yep—fine. Thanks, sir."

Daniel spoke from the monitor. "That's a great way to lose IQ points, Jack."

"Nobody asked you, Daniel."

"What were you doing under the table, sir?" Carter managed to look both triumphant and sympathetic.

"Pen." Jack held up his pen. "Dropped it."

"And this had nothing to do with—" She raised her eyebrows skeptically.

"Nothing at all, Major."

Hammond cleared his throat. "Yes, well. People." He gestured towards the file. "I think that Dr. Jackson has a little more information to gather before I give a go on this mission, so why don't you finish with your team meeting, and bring me the results of further analysis later on today?" He stood, and Carter and O'Neill stood, too. The General looked at each of them in turn. "I would hope that the rest of this meeting progresses with better results."

SG-1 waited for him to retreat back into his office before glaring around at each other.

"Jack—really. Pen?" Daniel still stood at the monitor, shaking his head.

"I dropped it."

"On purpose." Teal'c offered.

"Did not."

"I believe you did, O'Neill." The Jaffa regarded the Colonel with thin eyes. "In order to gain visual confirmation of whether or not Major Carter is marked with a mole on her ankle."

O'Neill had the decency not to deny it. "For the record, she's not."

"Oh my gosh—Colonel. This has to stop."

"It can."

"When? When I tell you where it is?"

"Sure. Go right ahead."

"No."

"Side."

"No."

"Armpit."

"No."

He leaned his body almost completely over the table and lowered his head, looked at her intently from beneath his eyebrows. He breathed, then breathed again. Then he licked his lips before saying, "Butt."

"Sir!" Carter stood. "Why is this so important to you?"

"You're the one who brought it up!"

"When?"

"P3X-989. You said it to yourself."

"Myself? I don't—" She shook her head in confusion.

"He's talking about Harlen's planet. When we got robotified. You and your robot were talking about how perfect the robot was--right down to the mole."

The Colonel grinned. "The mole."

"That was like—_years_ ago! I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about." She didn't specify to whom she was talking—her statement was really made to the room in general. "And I never promised I'd tell you where my mole was!"

"Ha!" O'Neill stood, too. "Was—or is? You didn't cheat and go out and have it removed, did you?"

"I haven't had anything removed!"

The Colonel grinned. "Then that means you still have it, therefore, your previous statement should have been _is_—not _was_."

"Geez! Why do you have to be such a dillhole?"

Silence fell in the room. Teal'c grinned wide, while Daniel put not one, but two hands over his mouth.

O'Neill's eyes flared wide. A smile tickled at the corner of his mouth, which he controlled only with superhuman effort. "That would be _Colonel_ Dillhole to you, Major."

Sam's face lost all color. She tensed her jaw once, then twice, and finally looked O'Neill straight in the eye.

"So you want to know?"

"Yes, I would."

Sam tossed a look over at the General's office. He was sitting at his desk, his back to the window.

"Fine, sir." She shrugged out of her BDU big shirt, then untucked the black t-shirt she wore. Flicking open the buckle of her pants, she unbuttoned, unzipped, and then carefully peeled the right side down so that O'Neill could see her right hip.

There, exactly at the spot where her bone peaked on her hip, was a tiny mole. "Satisfied?"

But the Colonel couldn't talk. His mouth had gone completely dry, and he was having a hard time tearing his gaze away from that—skin—and a peek of something a tad bit frilly—and pink—and—

Crap.

"Colonel?" Sam closed up her pants, hurriedly tucked her shirt back in and closed her belt. "I asked if you were satisfied."

"Um." Was all O'Neill could say.

"Now that you know where my mole is."

"Well." The Colonel finally grit out. He forced his line of sight up even with Carter's face. "Well."

"So now you can stop bothering me about it, sir." Carter gazed at him expectantly.

"I can." The world was slowly righting itself, and he could breathe again.

"Really. You can stop badgering me about my mole."

O'Neill shrugged, splaying his palms wide. "If you say so."

"What, sir?" She crossed her arms across her stomach and skewered him with cool, blue eyes. "If I say _what_?"

"The mole—that wasn't really much of a mole, was it?"

"Sir?"

"It was tiny—small, little." He gestured towards her hip with a careless hand. "Both itsy _and_ bitsy."

"So?"

"So, all I'm saying is that it was really more of a freckle than a mole."

"A freckle."

"A freckle." The Colonel nodded once, decisively.

Carter busied herself with gathering up her papers, shoving them angrily back into the file folder she'd arrived with. She strode with purposeful steps towards the door. At the threshold she turned and meaningfully skewered the Colonel's eye.

"Sir?"

"Yes, Carter?"

"Freckle you."


	9. Piece of Cake

_Piece of Cake_

"Why are we here again?"

Carter just handed him the sheaf of papers that had been sitting on the briefing room table when she'd arrived.

_Avoiding Sexual Harassment in the Workplace._

"What's this?" O'Neill flipped through a few pages of the hand out and blanched. He glared first at the pamphlet, and then at Carter, who had lured him to the briefing room under the guise of a short meeting and refreshments. He set the packet on the table, and then tried to catch the Major's eye.

She assiduously ignored him.

He tapped the papers, still looking at her.

She found the screen at the front of the room to be interesting.

He poked her shoulder.

He saw her hesitate, her head drop a little, and the tiniest sigh before she turned her head towards him. "Yes, sir?"

"You lied to me."

"I lied?"

"You told me this would be a short meeting and that there would be cake."

"I said that you'd just have to sit through the presentation in order to get cake. I never lied."

"Stretching the truth counts as lying, Major."

She didn't answer.

"Carter."

She rolled her shoulders, shook her hair, resituated herself in her chair, and ignored him.

"Carter." He lightly kicked the back of her chair. When she still didn't answer, he kicked it again, a little harder. Finally, he put his whole foot on the back of her chair and applied sudden, harsh pressure.

She jerked forward, then swiveled. "Yes, sir?"

"Didn't you learn anything in Sunday School?" He held up the papers. "Liars go straight to Hell. This is _not_ going to be a short meeting."

"It could be if you'd just sit still and be quiet, sir."

He frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

She gazed heavenward briefly—as if searching for guidance. Finally, she licked her lips, sucked in a deep breath, and looked him in the eye. "Well, sir. You have a tendency to drag things out."

"Me?" He looked like innocence itself. "Me? No—I don't drag things out."

"What about the negotiations with the Ardura?"

"What about them?"

"We'd just gotten to the final page of the treaty with them, and you pointed out that we really needed to add a clause stating that they weren't allowed to wear their ceremonial headdresses to Earth again."

He grinned, remembering. Finally, he quirked his head to the side and gave a little half shrug. "Well—you'd seen the hats. They were hideous. And the one guy sitting next to me—with the—" he motioned outward with both hands from the sides of his head, depicting with perfection the man's headdress. "Horns."

"They weren't horns. The Ardura believed that imitating nature was the highest form of worship. He was wearing a collection of twigs and sticks taken from his favorite trees."

"They were _horns_." O'Neill pointed at his face. "And that guy's totally poked me in the eye."

"It may have grazed you—"

"It poked me in the eye, Major, and then he blessed me with the joy that was having his horn in my eye."

"He was sharing his culture with you."

"He was sharing _something_." The Colonel smiled in his self-satisfied manner. "Some might say he was horny."

Carter rolled her eyes and indicated the packet of papers in front of her on the table. "And that's why we're here."

"What, we're here because that guy was horny?"

She traced the title of the seminar with her finger meaningfully, while looking at him.

He gleefully ignored her. "What does that guy's horniness have to do with Sexual Harassment in the Workplace?"

"I'd say that was ironic." Came a voice from the doorway. Daniel crossed the room and sat down in the space across from the Colonel at the table, followed by Teal'c.

"What's ironic, Daniel?" O'Neill queried.

"Well, we're here because you keep making inappropriate comments to people, and I walk in to hear you making inappropriate comments to people."

Sam groaned and leaned over, burying her head in her folder arms on the table.

"Wait—" The Colonel leaned forward in his chair. "What was that? We're here because of me?"

Daniel pursed his lips. "You didn't know?"

"No, he didn't know, Daniel." Sam raised her head slightly, so that only her eyes showed. Her muffled voice continued. "And he wasn't _supposed_ to know, remember?"

"Oh—oops." Daniel grimaced, sucked in a quick breath through his teeth. "I guess I forgot about that."

"You did, Daniel Jackson. We discussed this yesterday, after the meeting with General Hammond." Teal'c sighed heavily.

"Well, I thought that once we got here, and he saw the pamphlet and the theme of the seminar, he'd kind of have a clue." Daniel pushed at his glasses and tapped the stapled sheaf of papers in front of him on the table. "I mean, I don't know anyone else on the team that keeps making bonehead remarks."

"I would have said _stick_ head or _twig_ head—but that's just me. Bone head works, too."

"See? There you go again." Daniel gestured with one hand towards the Colonel. "Just like that."

"Okay—so I admit to the one with the Hors d'oeuvre guy."

"Ardura."

"Whatever. But really—what do they know from this?" He pointed at the papers. "It's not like he was offended or anything."

"You told him to put it back in his pants, sir." Carter's voice betrayed her discomfort with the subject.

"I was making a joke."

"Those people segregate their own children into different portions of the house, girls from boys. The entire population prides itself on its purity and moral rectitude. I doubt that dirty jokes go over well on their planet."

"Well then, Daniel, why do they call their planet Ardor?" The Colonel made his point quickly. "I mean, Ardor is generally a term used for passion and heat. Why would the most frigid-cold planet in the galaxy call itself Ardor?"

"Ardur, sir." Sam sighed. "It has a 'u' at the end. Not an 'o'."

"That's simply spelling, Major."

"Oh, good grief." Carter returned her head to the nest of her arms.

"Right." Daniel nodded. "And was it a joke when you told the Draban ambassador that she had all the full _frontal_ support of the Tau'ri people?"

"You saw her." O'Neill's eyes widened, and he ducked his chin slightly. "She needed that support." He lifted his hands in front of him, palms inward, fingers spread. "Really, _really_ needed that support."

"She and her people had just survived a terrible storm. The population had been decimated. We were offering her planet's inhabitants food, medicine, and clothing."

"Yes, well, that particular article of clothing would have been highly supportive. Uplifting, you might say."

Sam groaned again, into her arms.

"A real pick me up for a down trodden couple of folks."

"Sir, please."

"Something to hold her up in times of trial." He grinned, enjoying himself.

"Jack, that's exactly what we're talking about." Daniel leaned his head against the back of his chair. "You just can't go around saying things like that."

"Why not?"

Daniel ran a hand through his hair, making a sound like a cow being strangled. He raised his head, fixing O'Neill with his gaze. "You know the guard at the surface? The one that checks badges before they're swiped through the little card reader."

"Which one?"

"Dark hair—grumpy all the time."

"They're all grumpy. It comes from being boring. Those guys can't take a joke for nothing."

"Well, the one I'm talking about is shorter—" Daniel held up his hand around 5 feet from the floor.

"Oh, the little one—always needs a shave."

"The one you told to use a straight edge razor rather than an electric."

"Oh—yeah—you mean Oscar."

Daniel just stared at the Colonel, his mouth gaping open.

Sam raised her head and gawked at her Superior Officer. Finally, after several tries, she asked, "You call that guard 'Oscar'?"

"Yeah—he's always grouchy—Oscar the Grouch, therefore, he's Oscar."

"The guard you call Oscar is a woman, O'Neill." Teal'c informed him loftily. "She does not appreciate being referred to as 'Oscar'."

It was O'Neill's turn to stare. "That's a chick?"

"Indeed." Teal'c nodded once.

"Wow." His eyes widened, and he sat back in his seat, stunned. "Wow. That's one ugly woman."

"Jack—that's exactly what we're talking about. You just can't say things like that." Daniel tapped the handout. "You have to learn how to control what you say."

"Why? She's gotta know that she's not Miss America."

"Sir, really. That's not kind, and in very poor taste." Major Carter leaned back against her seat, turning to peer at the clock.

"You see, there's part of the problem with this whole Political Correct thing." The Colonel began, "You can't ever refer to anyone by their most obviously distinguishing characteristic. We could have cut out—like—three minutes of chatter there if you'd been able to say, 'that ugly short guard with the chin hair'. I would have known exactly who you meant. it's like Walters—or Harry—what is that little bald tech's name?" He appealed to Carter, who shook her head in confusion.

"Walter Harriman." Daniel supplied.

"Harriman. I have to describe him by saying the 'diminutive follicle challenged male individual of great humoristic talent'. But I just want to call him that 'funny little bald guy'. Why do we do this? Why do we have to say things in certain ways when the more efficient way would be to say it somehow else?"

"Because it's nicer, Jack. Words have meaning, and we need to be sensitive to the meanings of words when they are ascribed to people's cultures, or to their own personas." Daniel spoke as if addressing a convention of preschoolers.

"Well, that's stupid. Take that guy who works in the commissary. The one with the black frames for his bifocals. He's what—three hundred pounds if he's an ounce, right? But the other day, I was talking with someone else and trying to describe him, and had to say things like 'large-boned' and 'good-sized'. If I'd been able to say, 'he's the fat guy with the glasses', we both would have known exactly who I was talking about like _that_." He snapped his fingers. "It just doesn't make any sense. So I say what I'm thinking. I use words that other people understand immediately. Isn't that the essence of good communication? And yet you lure me here with the promise of dessert in order to teach me how to avoid other people taking offense at what I say."

"Sir, that's not what we did." But Carter's denial fell flat, even to her own ears.

"Yes, it is." The Colonel stood, pushing his chair back with his legs. "And all I have to say is this. People _understand_ me. Not at all like that gobbledy-gook that you're always spouting, Major. And Daniel, you speak twenty-three different languages, but you're constantly having to clarify things. And Teal'c—wow. A few _more_ words might be a good idea."

"I speak when it is appropriate, O'Neill."

"_Indeed_, you do." The Colonel said. He glared at his three team mates and shoved his hands in his pockets. "So. If you don't mind, I'll be leaving. I'm not going to sit around here and have people tell me how I have to talk."

He stood and stalked out of the room, not noticing that his team had stood and followed him. He marched down the hall to the elevator and punched the buttons for Level 22.

His team took the stairs.

When he walked into the commissary, he was shocked to see his team at the door. Daniel waggled his fingers at him, his face showing chagrin and apology.

"Jack, listen. We shouldn't have submarined you that way. Really. All we wanted to say was this—"

He opened the door to the commissary to reveal practically the entire base inside—the majority of the techs, the infirmary staff, and many of the SG teams well represented. And General Hammond stood next to a cake the size of Alaska.

When they saw O'Neill, they all shouted "Surprise!" and "Happy Birthday!"

The Colonel faltered, then turned to see his team, smiling smugly behind him. He narrowed his eyes at them. "So all that upstairs was—"

"We made it up." Carter grinned. "Although, I must say, sir that it was an enlightening conversation."

"Yeah—we'll talk about it more later." Daniel nodded, his lips pursed. "When it's _not_ your birthday."

"And for the record, Colonel," Carter began, "I didn't lie to you about everything."

"Oh?" O'Neill asked. He held the door open for her to pass through first. "And why do you say that?"

She stopped near the cart, next to General Hammond.

"Well," she said, nodding towards the candles burning on the massive pastry. "I did tell you there would be cake."


	10. Captive Audience 1

_This is a two part story—the end is conveniently entitled Captive Audience 2. I know, it's catchy. I can't help myself._

_Captive Audience_

"So, how long do you think it'll take?"

"For what?"

"For these Rastafarians to decide that we're all right?"

Daniel looked up from his journal, his glasses nearly sliding off the tip of his nose. "Actually, Jack. The _Rata Gari_ explained that this ritual is merely that—a symbolic imprisonment that signifies that we don't think we're better than they are."

"Then the prison itself should be symbolic, and not actual." Jack sat where he normally sat in a prison, on the floor near the bars, one arm casually hanging out.

Teal'c was in one corner, Daniel in another, and Carter sat in her own cell across the way. Apparently, the Rata Gari didn't believe in coeducational dorms.

"I mean, they could've at least given us something to eat." He looked around, a look of consternation on his face. "Or a john."

"I'm sure they'll take care of whatever our needs are during the time of the ritual."

"Do you always just believe in people like that, Daniel?"

"What do you mean?" Daniel flipped his journal closed, and pushed his glasses up to give his full attention to Jack. "Are you saying that I'm gullible?"

"No. Nothing like that."

"It is indeed like that." Teal'c intoned from his corner. He'd been taking Daniel's side more often lately, the traitor.

"No—it's not, T. It's just that Daniel seems to take people at their word." The Colonel reached up and hung his arm off the cross bar of the cell gate. "I'm more of a skeptical bent, myself."

From far away, they could hear Carter snort.

"What's that, Carter? Do you have something to add?"

"Nothing, sir." Her voice sounded vaguely disembodied. Probably from echoing around the stone walls of the jail.

----OOOOOOO----

They'd stepped through the 'Gate several hours earlier, on a routine follow-up visit to a civilization first contacted some days earlier by another SG team. It wasn't an advanced society, but the people had managed to avoid enslavement by the Goa'uld. SG-1's job was to try to negotiate trade relations so that they could acquire some of the planet's vast naquadah resources.

But first, apparently, they had to spend some time in jail.

The village where the 'Gate was located lay in lowlands, surrounded on all sides by towering naquadah-rich mountains. The 'Gate itself sat in a meadow outside town. The village was quaint—wooden structures arranged in concentric circles around a center clearing about the size of a basketball court.

And in the center of the basketball court sat—a roof.

So Jack had asked. "What's with the roof?"

"That would be the site of Rata Gue." Their guide had been a small man, with smart eyes and a quick smile. He'd called himself Matu.

"Rata-what?"

"Rata _Gue_." Matu repeated, more slowly. "It is a ritual that puts everyone on an even footing."

Jack looked down at his boots. "We've, uh, already had that conversation."

Teal'c had hinted at what passed for a smile. "I believe I emerged victorious that day, O'Neill."

"Yeah, yeah." Jack grimaced. "You and your enormous planks."

"Come on, guys, we're not talking about shoes, here." This from Daniel.

"Neither were we that day, Daniel." Jack grinned at him. "Or didn't you get that?"

Sam had rolled her eyes, sighed, and stepped closer to the little villager. "What exactly is the rite of Rata Gue?"

"This structure is a jail of sorts, meant to welcome newcomers." He'd flourished a hand towards the roof. "It is a set of cells carved deep in the rocks in which we live. It is a symbol that you enter the Rooms of Rata Gue, reside there within our beloved rock, and then emerge, having been birthed by the stone."

"Interesting." Daniel gazed at the structure speculatively. "It sounds similar to an Earth ritual that some religious believers practice, known as 'baptism'."

"Oh?" Matu cocked his head to one side and waited politely.

"Well," Daniel began, "On Earth, these believers want to show their piety, and so they gain admittance into the number of followers by entering into a pool of water, being submerged, and then re-emerging from the water. It's symbolic of both becoming cleansed of one's transgressions, and the death and resurrection of their religious leader."

"It sounds very much like a ritual we practice here in Rata Garia."

"Really?" Daniel's eyebrows shot up.

"We call it _bathing_." The guide smiled and gave a little half bow before gently herding them towards the roof.

"So much for the missionary work," Jack grinned at Daniel, trailing behind the guide, who was traipsing along beside Carter. "Unless you brought some pamphlets along."

Daniel had perfected a look which told Jack exactly what he was thinking. He flashed it at the Colonel now. The Colonel wasn't flattered.

They rounded the building until they came to the entrance. It was little more than a recessed set of stairs that led down to a simple wooden door. The roof didn't sit on the ground, although eaves on two sides of the building made it appear so. The structure actually poked up out of the sod around three feet—enough for ventilation and a few decent sized windows.

"You will spend your Rata Gue here." The little man had held out a hand toward the door. "There are no locks, no chains in the rooms. They are merely comfortable cells in which to show your obeisance to the Rata Gari. When you emerge, we will then talk of trade."

Carter descended first, gently pushing the door open and entering the dim, cool rooms. The guide shadowed her, then moved aside as the rest of the team had entered.

A tiny foyer emptied into a hallway, from which four individual cells branched out. There were, indeed, no locks on the doors, and no chains, but the non-similarity to a medieval dungeon stalled there. The walls were dark stone, slightly damp, and the floors little more than hard-packed dirt. The beams of the roof gleamed of aged wood, and loomed low over them. Windows set near the roof in the far wall, opposite the entry, let in light and fresh air, and tufts of grass could be seen trailing in through the sills. Any of them, standing, could see clearly out of the windows. The cells contained no beds, no benches, no furniture of any kind—just walls, and bars, and that ever present musty smell usually associated with garages and basements.

O'Neill crossed to one of the large, clean cells, peering through the bars with wary interest. "So, we're supposed to stay in here to show what again?"

"That you consciously approach us as equals." The little man crossed to one cell and opened the door. "You will be trusted not to leave this cell without our permission. Once we have measured your honor, we will then retrieve you and we will discuss trade."

"So you're not going to lock us in?"

"No."

"You're not going to take our stuff?"

"Of course not."

"Not even our weapons?"

"We have weapons of our own—we have no need of yours."

One of O'Neill's eyes twitched. "Too good to be true" usually meant "eventually this will bite you in the butt".

"Sir." Carter drew near up on O'Neill's side, then turned so that her back was to the guide. "The naquadah on this planet seems to be plentiful and fairly simple to extract. I believe that this could be an important alliance."

"I know, Carter, but you know me and jail."

She smiled. "Yes, sir. I'm just saying that we'll still have our weapons, our gear. There are no locks on the cell doors, and I've got ample supplies in my pack."

"They're a peaceful people, Jack." Daniel had opined quietly. "This imprisonment will most likely only last a short time, and then we'll get to the trade talks."

Jack grunted, then let out a loud, harsh sigh. Turning towards their host, he said. "Okay. What do we do?"

Matu had smiled and crossed to the first door. "The female among you will occupy this cell. The rest of you will share that one over there." He'd pointed.

"Segregation?"

"Of course." The guide had spoken as if he couldn't imagine any other way.

"Carter gets a suite and we have to bunk together." O'Neill watched as the Major had entered her cell and removed her pack. "Nice."

"I'm sure it will only be for a short period of time, right Matu?"

The guide had already hustled over to the other door and opened it wide. "The gentlemen will enter here."

Daniel hurried himself in, followed by Teal'c, who stepped aside to let a reluctant O'Neill enter the cell.

As Matu closed the doors, he grinned. "Well! Welcome! We are on our way to true friendship and equal trade!"

And then the little man had practically skipped down the hall and out of the jail.

Nobody had told them that the front door was the one with the lock. On the outside. Which Matu secured tightly before hurrying around to the window and wishing them well.

----OOOOOOO----

"Does _anyone_ have any food?"

"I do sir!" The disembodied voice floated across the way.

"Bring it over."

"I'm not sure I should, sir."

"And why would that be?"

O'Neill heard rustling noises, and pressed his face as far as he could through the bars of his cell. He could barely make out his second in command through the dimness. She'd sat down in the corner nearest their cell, and was rummaging in her pack.

"Ah-ha!" It echoed, this time.

"Whatcha find, Carter?"

A light flared on his face, but she quickly turned the beam toward the ceiling. "I think we're being watched."

"By what?"

"The people here." She focused and stilled the flashlight beam on a brown stone in the center of the room. "I think that's a camera or some other observation device. I first noticed it right after Matu left, but I wanted to look at it with my flashlight just to make sure."

The Colonel stood, stretching as close as he could to the stone. It was rounded, and slightly opaque, but clearly different than the beams which created the ceiling structure. Truth be told, it resembled those half-globe surveillance units found in discount stores.

"Well, will you look at that." Daniel stood and crossed over to join Jack at that gate. "That's how they decide."

"Decide what?"

"Whether or not we are honorable people, O'Neill." Teal'c had stayed in his corner. "If they are indeed capturing our movements with this device, it would signify that they are attempting to ascertain whether we do as we have said he would do."

Jack whipped off his cap and threw it onto the pack he'd deposited on the floor next to his spot. "Well, crap."

"What crap, Jack?"

"I was kind of hoping that we could open these doors and roam around a little bit."

"I would advise against that, sir." Carter called across the void. She shut the flashlight off and started rustling around in her pack again.

"Yeah, Jack, they're trying to see if we're honorable. If we get up and move around, obviously we'll have betrayed our part of the agreement."

"My part of the agreement said that I wasn't going to star in Rastafarian Reality TV."

"Rata Gari." Daniel automatically corrected him. He headed back over to where he'd dropped his backpack on the floor.

"Whatever." The Colonel lowered himself to the ground again, holding on the bars on the way down. He glared up at the stone. "I still don't like being watched."

"I would suggest finding something which with to entertain yourself, O'Neill." Teal'c suggested dryly from his corner. "I intend to attempt to kelnorim."

"Yeah." O'Neill nodded over to him. "You do that. Knock yourself out."

Daniel opened his backpack and withdrew his journal and a pen. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he flipped to a specific page and started writing.

The Colonel sighed. "Well, this is going to get old real quick."

"What's that, sir?" Carter called over.

"I said," he raised his voice and yelled over his shoulder in the direction of her voice. "This is going to get old really quick!"

Daniel scowled over at him. "You don't have to yell, Jack."

"Apparently, I do. She didn't hear me the first time."

"What's that, sir?" The Carter-less voice trailed through the dim hallway.

"I was talking to Daniel!" He was going to get a crick in his neck if this continued long.

"Oh." She sounded a bit forlorn. "Sorry!"

O'Neill sighed. He shifted in his corner, fingered the bars, and scraped at something with his fingernail.

Daniel studiously ignored him. Teal'c had already drifted away. Or the Jaffa was ignoring him, too, which O'Neill had to admit was a distinct possibility.

Jack sighed, looked around, the sighed again.

"So, how long do you think it'll take?"

----OOOOOOO----

_To Be Continued in Captive Audience 2_


	11. Captive Audience 2

_This story got completely out of hand, and since I don't like these to go over a certain size, this episode of Team Building gets two chapters. I hope this didn't annoy anyone—I thought briefly about posting this as a stand alone, but there are references to other Team Building stories, so I didn't want to confuse anyone. _

_I hope you enjoy this—I had fun writing this one._

_Captive Audience 2_

"So, how long do you think it'll take?"

Long enough for him to completely deplete his supply of patience. And trail mix.

He tried to be long suffering, having been told by numerous people over the years that it was a trait he should try to acquire.

But longsuffering got boring.

And Daniel kept shushing him when he tried to start up a conversation with Carter, who sounded at least as bored as he was.

It had been—he flipped back the cover on his watch—two hours and eighteen minutes since they'd figured out that Matu had actually locked them in.

This level of inactivity could be deadly for a guy who couldn't stand still in an elevator without pushing extra buttons. Hey—he could be honest with himself.

Jack wadded up the trail mix wrapper and stowed it in his pack. He thought briefly about digging around in the pack and trying to find one of the multitudinous toys he normally traveled with, but they'd been disappearing lately, and he suspected one of the people he currently sat imprisoned with as the culprit. Well, one of them, or all of them. They'd each been shifty lately.

A movement at the window caught his attention, and he looked over to see a child's face peering through the bars.

He stood, crossed to the window, and returned the look. It was a little boy—around eight years old.

"Hey." He said.

The kid scowled. "You're boring."

"What?"

"You're boring. The other Rata Gue prisoners have at least tried to make it interesting, but you people just sit there. Boring."

"How long have you been watching us?"

The kid sat down next to the window and plucked a blade of grass from near the sill. "Since Matu brought you down. We always gather when there are new prisoners. It's usually a good show. One guy sang for us. A lady danced. Once a man and woman were together—and that one was interesting. Then they started separating girls and boys."

"They did?"

"They said that was a little too educational." The kid dropped the piece of grass through the window and picked another one.

"And what did you think?"

"I thought it was gross."

"Good boy."

The kid frowned at him. "Do you sing?"

"No."

"Dance?"

"No."

"Tell stories?"

"I can tell jokes."

"Funny jokes?"

"Is there another kind?"

The child narrowed one eye, his fingers working automatically on the grass. "Tell me one."

"Okay." Jack thought for a moment. He glanced over at Daniel, who was watching him intently. "What?"

"Make it clean, Jack."

"Of course I will, Daniel. He's just a kid."

But the archaeologist still looked more than a little skeptical.

O'Neill ran through the jokes in his head, discarding any that were sketchy or too Earth-bound. Finally, he turned back toward the face between the bars.

"Three guys are standing on the roof of a building."

"How tall is the building?"

"Ten stories."

"How tall is a story?"

"Uh—taller than a house."

"Okay."

"Okay, so they're on this roof. And the first guy runs to the edge."

"Why did he run to the edge, Colonel O'Neill? This would seem to be a foolish thing to do." Teal'c asked from his corner.

"Just because he does, Teal'c. There's no other reason."

"It would be wiser to remain in the center of the roof awaiting rescue."

"If he did that, then there wouldn't be a joke."

Teal'c inclined his head. "I see. It just seems foolish for a man to abandon a safe location in order to facilitate comedy."

Jack just stared at him. Finally, he shook his head and looked back up at the face. "So you with me?"

"I think so."

"So he runs to the edge and just as he's preparing to jump, he yells, 'Airplane!' and he turns into an airplane and flies away."

"That is indeed fortuitous, O'Neill."

"Shush, T."

Teal'c shushed.

"What's an airplane?" This from the boy, accompanied by a furrowed forehead.

"It's a machine that flies."

"Oh. Go on."

"So the second guy runs to the edge and yells, 'Eagle!' and—"

"What's an eagle?" The kid had stopped shredding grass and had his hands gripped around the bars of the window.

"An eagle—it's a bird. A big bird."

"Is it pretty?" The boy grinned. "I like pretty birds. There are many beautiful birds on Rata Gari."

Jack considered this for a moment. "I wouldn't say pretty as much as awesome—it's big and has nasty claws—"

"Talons!" Carter called from her cell. "They're called talons on birds of prey!"

"Thanks!" Jack waved a hand in her direction. "Appreciate the help, Major!"

"You're welcome!" She called back, apparently happy to contribute.

"Anyhoo—" Jack rewound back to where he'd been. "They're not that pretty, but they're good looking birds."

"Like Dr. Jackson is good looking and Major Carter is pretty?"

"Thanks!" Called Sam from her cell.

Daniel grinned. "If I'm good looking, and Sam is pretty, what does that make Jack?"

The boy nodded intelligently. "He's _old_."

"Ah." Daniel laughed smugly. "Old. Okay, then, go on, Gramps."

Jack leveled a look at Daniel that took most of the giddy out of his expression. "Are you done?"

"Yeah." Daniel raised his journal, brandished his pen. "Writing. See?"

"Ummm." The Colonel rediscovered his place and continued. "So the guy yells, 'Eagle!'. And he turns into an eagle and flies away."

The little boy's face was rapt, awaiting the last man's fate. His fingers drummed on the bars of the window.

"So the third guy runs to the edge—but just when he gets there, he trips on the side of the roof and yells, 'Oh! Crap!'"

O'Neill waited. Daniel groaned and lowered his face into his book. Teal'c's mouth inched up at one corner. From Sam's cell, a slight giggle wafted through the air.

The boy simply stared at him. After an interminable amount of time, he shook his head. "I don't get it."

"What don't you get about it? The last guy says 'Oh, crap.'"

"So, what's funny about that?"

"So, he turns into crap—like the other guys turned into an eagle or an airplane."

The boy still sat, stone faced, in the window.

"Poop. Shi-shi. Number 2. Doo-doo. Chocolate logs." O'Neill turned to Daniel. "What are more words for crap?"

"That joke comes to mind." Daniel said without looking up from his journal.

"Shut up, Daniel."

"Shutting up."

The boy glared at O'Neill. Standing, he brushed the grass of his pants, then bent over again to peer into the jail. "I don't think that joke helped you much." He took one last look around the room and turned and hurried away.

----OOOOOOO----

Eighteen hours later, O'Neill joined Carter at the top of the 'Gate platform. The walk from the village had done nothing to ease the stiffness in his joints, and he was going to need to spend around an hour in the bathroom and then at least that long in the commissary.

"Are you okay, sir?"

"Besides really needing to pee? Besides being totally put down by a little kid? Besides having spent twenty some-odd hours in the Rooms of Ratatouille? Yeah—sure. I'm great, Carter."

"I told you not to drink those juice boxes." She grinned.

"I figured they'd at least give me a pot or a jar, Major."

"Yes, well, next time we'll remember to make arrangements for that."

She turned to enter the event horizon, but he caught at her arm, turning her around.

"What?"

"Next time. You said 'Next time'."

"Yeah—you didn't catch that?"

He shook his head. "Catch what?"

"Matu said we had to come back. The amounts of naquadah we're requesting are causing alarm and they want some time to reconsider. He suggested returning to the Rooms of Rata Gue to show that we're really in earnest."

O'Neill blanched. He turned to stare at the village behind him, then whirled around again to look at his Major. "Do we have to?"

"I'm afraid so, sir." She shrugged and put a hand on his elbow. "Come on. Let's go home."

O'Neill dropped his head in resignation, and sighed deeply.

And as they entered the shimmering entrance to the wormhole, Carter distinctly heard the Colonel say, "Well, _crap_."


	12. Gifted Class

_I know that there is some controversy surrounding exactly when Sam's birthday is. I'm choosing, for the purposes of this story, to go with the birthday displayed on the screen during "Entity", that shows Sam was born on December 29, 1968. I know that Orlin gave her an emerald (ostensibly her birthstone) in "Ascension" which would indicate that her birthday was in May, but I'm thinking that her personnel file would be more accurate. _

_Besides, since mine is the next day (although of a slightly different year), that's a way cooler birthday than some random date in May. _

_And because I'm in a shippy mood, this is unavoidably fluffy. If you are averse to fluff, be ye therefore warned._

_Gifted Class_

"Okay, guys, we need a plan."

"Yeah, the plan is to find something that she won't kill us for giving her."

"I believe the plan requires us to locate and purchase a gift in honor of Major Carter's birthday."

The three men stared at each other. It was a safer bet than looking anywhere around them.

They were at the Mall. The bastion of all that was Girl. That rare and wonderful place where people of all creeds, colors, and backgrounds went in noble quest of the perfect piece of crap to complete their otherwise lacking lives.

The place where testosterone went to die.

"I don't get it." O'Neill cast a discontented look around him at the teaming humanity frothing around him. "Christmas is over. What are all these people doing here?"

"I believe many people are attempting to exchange items they received in favor of the items that they truly desired." Teal'c's eyebrow raised almost imperceptibly. He didn't even try to hide his aversion to this practice. "Returning a gift in such a fashion is negating the honor of receiving the gift in the first place."

"Yes, well, you don't have an Aunt Doris, T."

"Indeed, I do not, O'Neill." Teal'c's eyes came to rest on the Colonel. "I fail to see how the nomenclature of my parent's siblings comes to bear with the practice of disregarding the thoughtfulness of others."

O'Neill cracked a half a smile. "When I was eight, my Aunt Doris gave me a Barbie doll for Christmas."

Daniel snorted—then laughed out right. "And what did you do first, Jack, curl its hair or make it new clothes?"

"Well, my mom and dad wouldn't let me exchange it—saying it would be ungrateful. They made me write a thank you note, and then sent me on out to play."

"What happened to the doll?"

"I bought a roll of Max Pop M-60s off a guy on the street, drilled some holes in the doll, inserted the firecrackers, and blew it up."

"You're kidding."

"Nope—you'd be surprised how far a Barbie head will fly when you use enough firepower." He smiled at the memory.

"That explains a lot about you, Jack."

"Why? What would you have done?" Jack gestured to Daniel with one hand, his face expectant.

"I actually had a few dolls like that." Daniel shoved at his glasses. "I made historically accurate costumes for them and created dioramas for school projects."

"And _that_ explains even _more_ about you."

Teal'c ignored both of them. "Yet still unexplained is the reason for the not inconsiderable crowds here today. They cannot all be here to exchange gifts."

"No—some people are here looking for good after-Christmas specials. Most stores are offering huge deals right now." Daniel pointed meaningfully at several large "Sale" placards taking up space in front of stores.

"You sound like you go to the mall a lot, Daniel."

"Not really—I'm just observant and know how to read, Jack." He mused, narrowing his eyes at the older man. "I wouldn't expect you to understand."

"Gentlemen. Friends. Might we not focus our energies on finding a suitable gift for Major Carter?"

Jack rocked back on his heels, blowing out a frustrated breath between his lips.

"I think we should give her a gift card again. That seemed to go over well last year."

"I doubt she's even used it yet, Daniel." Jack ventured a look over Daniel's shoulder, where a store window displayed a series of mannequins in various stages of undress. They were all bald, posed in a provocative tableau, wearing little more than strips of fabric clinging to their plastic figures. They looked to Jack like a gaggle of Mummies. The name of the store was Pharoah. "And didn't you give her one for Christmas?"

"Yeah, you're right." Daniel noted and then followed Jack's gaze, turning his body around to look at the store. He sighed heavily, shaking his head. "Will you look at that? They have weaponry from the Raneb Dynasty totally mixed up with statuary and canopic jars from the reign of Amenemhet the Third."

Jack stared at the windows—somehow he'd missed the crap around the mannequins. Littered around the windows were replicas of Egyptian artifacts—jars decorated with people's heads, scarab beetles, and gold painted staffs and crowns. Behind the scene were drapes painted to look like walls, complete with hieroglyphs.

And even though he knew better—even though he knew he'd actually get an answer—he still found his mouth forming the words, "What's the difference?"

"Only about a thousand years." Daniel ran an exasperated hand through his hair. "That and the fact that Raneb convinced his people to worship a goat, while Amenemhet the Third was known for technology like water wheels and a canal system—you know—little stuff like _that_ kind of sets them apart."

"What does it matter?" Jack shrugged. "It's a lame store in a mall. Who cares if they have the history right?"

"Well they could at least try—if they are going to use the figure head of a proud, industrious people as their brand name, the least they could do is perform a basic fact check before totally screwing up the realism of their display cases."

"They're catering to sixteen year old girls with Daddy's credit card—who exactly among them is going to care about Amendment's canals?"

"Amenemhet."

"That's what I said."

"You said, 'Amendment'."

"No I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

"No."

"Yes."

"O'Neill. Daniel Jackson." Teal'c glared at both of them from under the folded edge of his green stocking cap. "We are here for a specific purpose. Perhaps we should endeavor to accomplish it."

Daniel turned around again, "Okay, you're right, Teal'c. So, ideas?"

"You had suggested a gift card might be amenable." Teal'c looked at Daniel expectantly. "Which retailer do you think Major Carter would be most likely to patronize?"

"Sharper Image." Daniel nodded in the direction of the store. "A few years ago I gave her something from there."

"That little clock thing?" O'Neill waved a hand vaguely in the air above it. "The one that shines it on the roof?"

"The alarm clock—and yes, it projected the time on the ceiling so that she could see it without having to turn over to look at the clock."

"That was actually pretty cool." He tried not to imagine the clock where it sat on the little table next to her bed. He tried not to visualize the Major in bed, staring up at that projection. Then, of course, he had to force himself not to imagine her on her back, timing certain activities by the light of the projected display. He wondered how having the time on the ceiling for a woman to look at would pressure certain—other—activities. Activities in which endurance and stamina counted heavily into the final grade. He scowled. "On the other hand—it's kind of a crappy gift."

Daniel absorbed that information momentarily before turning towards the Colonel. "Jack?"

"Yeah, Daniel."

"She told me she put that in her room at home."

"Yeah?"

"So how have you seen it? When was the last time you were in her bedroom?"

Jack opened his mouth, but nothing came out but a strangled "_Gah_."

"Have you been in her bedroom lately?"

"Not like—_that_." Jack spluttered. "Not how you're meaning it."

"Then how?"

"When she had that–guy—there—you know, the glowing guy."

"Orlin?"

"Yeah—I went over there to help her search for more cameras. You were still off-world doing something else. I saw it then."

"Uh-huh." Blatant, delicious disbelief. That's what Daniel's tone said.

"Shut up, Daniel."

"I mean, it's not like we're never over there. We go to her house all the time."

"I've never been in her bedroom."

"Have you not, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c intoned, "It appears you are the only one of us for which that is true."

Daniel stared at the Jaffa. "When were _you_ in her bedroom?"

"Just a few days ago when we celebrated Christmas at her home."

"I don't remember you going in her room—" Daniel's voice trailed off as he shook his head, deep in thought.

"She asked for my assistance in helping to wrap several gifts."

"Yeah." O'Neill nodded. "She hides them under her bed."

"Jack?" Within that word lay a mountain of meaning.

O'Neill rolled his eyes. "She _told_ me that, Daniel. Get your head out of the gutter."

"Pots and kettles, Jack. Pots and kettles."

"Are you suggesting we gift Major Carter with cookware, Daniel Jackson?"

"Uh—no, Teal'c." Daniel's face turned stricken. He couldn't quite control the shudder that ran through him. "Can you imagine what she'd do if we gave her pots and pans for her birthday?"

"It would be like that time we gave her the blender."

In unison, all three men sighed. That had _not_ been a good day.

"Well, we'd better walk, at least. We're not going to find anything if we just stand here." Daniel gestured to his left, towards the inner sanctum of the Mall. They'd been standing just inside the main entrance. To their right ran a long corridor over which blazed a neon sign proclaiming, "Food Court". To the left, the Mall continued in a long, winding path. The whole thing was essentially a round track from which a few arms branched out. On the ends were the anchor stores—and hundreds of smaller boutique stores marched in obedient, if not soldierly order between.

Uncertainly, they started out.

----OOOOOOO----

"Jewelry?" Daniel suggested.

"What kind?"

"I don't know. She normally doesn't wear much."

"Then, nope."

----OOOOOOO----

"Perfume?"

"Have you ever known her to wear perfume?"

"She usually smells like gunpowder and soap." In other words, Jack thought, she usually smelled perfect. Even a little kinky, if you got right down to it. He barely hid the grin that had overtaken him at that point.

"Then I guess perfume's out."

----OOOOOOO----

"Perhaps she would enjoy a treat from this confectioner's shop." Teal'c had stopped in front of the Godiva store.

"Milk or Dark? Truffles or plain? Fruits? Chews? Crisps? Toffee? Caramel? " Daniel stared at the assortments in the window, the array dizzying in its intensity.

"I know she likes nuts." O'Neill deadpanned.

"Jack—was that necessary?" Daniel had thrown him an excoriating look before stalking off.

"I thought it was." The Colonel had muttered.

----OOOOOOO----

"Clothes?" This from O'Neill.

"You know her size?"

"No—but we could guess."

"And what if we guess wrong? Too big, say—"

"Gah—" It was O'Neill's turn to shudder. "Ouch."

"Exactly."

----OOOOOOO----

"Music?"

"Her taste in music is quite eclectic." Daniel shrugged. "I wouldn't know where to start."

"I could suggest that Bra'tac record and transmit to us a selection of Jaffa war music." Teal'c had actually looked kind of excited about that one. "The horns of the Kol mak'tash are indeed stirring and arousing."

For once, Daniel and Jack had been on the same page.

"Maybe for Valentine's Day, T." Jack had moved on, dragging the rest of them with him.

----OOOOOOO----

"No." Daniel's denial was flat, vociferous, and final.

Jack couldn't even talk.

"No, Jack."

He gazed in silent, contemplative wonder, at the array in front of him. Imagining blond hair and soft skin and blue eyes and _that_—

"Jack—I mean it." Daniel tugged on the Colonel's arm ineffectually.

"But—" A pathetic whisper—more plea than anything else—was all that he could muster.

"Look, Jack, you can give that to her if you want, but I happen to like my 'nads right where they are."

Jack had to admit that was a good argument. Sighing one last time, he stepped away from the window where the myriad sultry secrets of Victoria were so openly displayed.

----OOOOOOO----

"Why does she have to have a birthday so close to Christmas, anyway? It's like cheating or something."

"Why is it cheating?"

"Because you have to figure out something for Christmas, and then just a few days later, you have to come up with something for her birthday, and if you get something lame, she'll just think that you got it in a clearance sale, or you've regifted it."

"What is a re-gift?" The terminology sounded decidedly odd on Teal'c's tongue.

"It's when you give someone something that somebody else gave you."

Teal'c looked appalled. "Who would do such a thing? Gifts should be bought with thoughtfulness and deliberation—not selected merely because you yourself do not want such an item."

Jack nervously glanced up at Teal'c green stocking cap. That had been an Aunt Doris original. Teal'c, however, had been delighted at the gift.

Moving on.

----OOOOOOO----

"Perhaps an item from that establishment would be appropriate." Teal'c had stopped in front of a store that proudly announced itself as "Ye Olde Knife Shoppe". In the window, an anvil had been draped in velvet to display a selection of weapons. "I believe that one with the ornamental handle would be pleasing to a woman such as Major Carter."

And the knife was perfect for her. But damned if the Jaffa didn't just go right ahead and buy it, waiting patiently as the store clerk wrapped it in a simple black box with a silver bow. He didn't even offer to go halfsies.

One down.

They wandered down another branch of the Mall, and Daniel discovered a small bookstore at the end. Within minutes, he'd found a large, frightening-looking beast of a book. On a vivid orange background, bold black letters lauded, "_Symmetry, Molecular Spectroscopy and Laser Engineering: Purposeful Applications for Advanced Students of Physics"._

Jack's enthusiasm could easily be contained.

Two gifts bought and paid for.

But on an endcap in the store, right by the cook books and travel tomes, a display of calendars caught his eye. One in particular gave him an idea.

By the time Daniel had bought his book and had it wrapped, Jack decided he was ready to go. They left the Mall, and O'Neill dropped Teal'c back at the SGC on his way back home. He had some calls to make.

----OOOOOOO----

They took her to O'Malley's for dinner. She had a steak and a salad and her customary diet soda. She loved the knife and the book and pretended to be surprised when the wait staff appeared with a few candles on a cake singing an odd, rushed amalgamation of birthday tunes. O'Neill had paid for her meal.

And afterwards, when they'd poured Daniel into a cab with Teal'c, she turned to him and grinned.

"Thanks for a great birthday dinner, sir."

"It was nothing."

"Yes, well, with my dad gone and Mark being—_Mark_, it's nice to have people who care whether you have a good birthday."

O'Neill nodded and gave her half a smile. "Shall we?" At her shrug, he set off across the parking lot, and she walked easily beside him—her car was parked close to his.

As they neared his truck, he stopped. "You know, I did get you a present."

"I thought dinner was the gift. You didn't have to do anything at all."

"Yes, well, it was too big to wrap."

Her eyes wide, she glanced at the truck, where a tarp obscured a large shape in the bed. "Sir?"

"Go on."

She handed him her jacket and, putting a foot on the back bumper, vaulted herself easily over the edge. Glancing back at him suspiciously, she lifted the tarp.

She instantly grinned. "Holy Hannah—sir—is this—" She threw the tarp back to reveal a 1940 Indian motorcycle, identical to the one she already had. It was rusty, and one of the fenders had considerable damage. The seat had long since been lost, and both handlebars were crunched beyond recognition. But the original headlamp dangling from the front was still in great shape, and the gas tank miraculously had avoided being dented. And most importantly—

"The speedometer. Holy—Sir—Colonel. I don't know what to say." Her eyes were bright even in the dark of the night. "It's completely intact. You just don't find those in this good of condition. Where—" She stood up straight, looking adoringly at the bike as if it were a lover. "Sir—I don't know what to say."

"Then don't say anything."

"How did you know?"

"I figured you could use it for parts." He nodded towards it. "I heard Siler say something about how you were having a hard time finding certain original things."

"Yeah—headlamp, speedometer—it's tough to find the 130 speedometer. I'm—" She looked down at him, still grinning.

Suddenly, she placed a hand on the tailgate of the truck and jumped to the ground. She was close—breathing hard with a mixture of excitement and nerves. He could feel her trembling.

"Thank you." Her eyes caught some light from the restaurant and he could see something—indefinable—within them. "I know how hard it is to find these."

"Yeah, well, I know a guy."

Without warning, she closed the distance and pressed herself to him, one arm rounding up and over his shoulder, her other arm twining around his neck, her hand finding itself tangled in the hair at his nape. She touched her cheek to his, hugging still tighter when his arms wrapped themselves around her.

"Thank you." Her breath stirred the close cropped hair near his ear. He closed his eyes and gave in to it.

"Happy Birthday, Sam."


	13. Laughing Matters

_I love these little ditties—Team Building stories are so much fun for me! I am going to mark this set "Complete", though, and will most likely start a new set the next time I'm inspired. I hope you enjoy this one!_

_(And if you do, you're welcome to let me know!)_

_**Laughing Matters**_

"Why do they have to do that?"

"Do what?"

"Giggle." Daniel cast a look over his shoulder, to where the four young officers sat at a table nearby. Returning his gaze to Jack, he shook his head. "Aren't they supposed to be kick-butt soldiers? Soldiers shouldn't giggle."

Jack directed his gaze diagonally and past Daniel, across the room to where the girls sat. They were all athletic, attractive, and intelligent looking, two blondes, a red head, and one brunette. Other than the fact that they were currently hunched over the table, whispering animatedly to each other within bouts of mirth, there was nothing distinguishing at all about them. The Colonel didn't even know their names. He turned back to his breakfast.

"Ignore them."

"That's kind of hard when they're always doing it." Daniel's frown deepened. "And I mean _always_. Whenever I see the four of them, they're laughing about something. I just think that, given the seriousness of the work we do here, they could show a little more maturity and reticence."

"Carter giggles." Jack pointed at him with the south half of a banana. "_And_ she could kick your butt from here to McGillicuddy."

"Mc-_where_-icuddy?"

"McGillicuddy." O'Neill sat up straight in his chair and gave a tiny shake of his head. "Like Timbuktu—Eternity—Far Egypt—Hell and Gone. Or those other 'from here to where' places."

"I've never heard of that before."

"Well, clichés being clichés and all—" The Colonel peeled the last bit of his banana and chucked it into his mouth. He chewed animatedly before continuing. "Anyway, the point is that Carter does giggle."

"Not since you ordered her not to." Daniel raised a piece of cream cheese coated bagel to his mouth.

"Oh, she still does. Except that now she doesn't make any noise. She just sits there, hides her mouth and kind of shakes."

Daniel tilted his head to one side and gave a brief nod of concurrence. "All right, I'll give you that one."

"Besides, you have to consider why they're giggling."

"Oh? And what would that be?"

"They're laughing at you."

"At me?" Daniel scowled. "What possible reason could they have to laugh at me?"

"Oh, I don't know," Jack waved a hand randomly in Daniel's direction. "Haircut, glasses, no butt, take your pick."

"I have a butt."

"No, you don't."

"Yes, I do."

"No, Daniel you don't." Jack shook his head. "Face it. You're butt-less."

Daniel rolled his eyes and reached for some more cream cheese. "Whatever."

"But you _are_ cute." O'Neill's eyes widened as he smiled suggestively. "You and that tousled boy-next-door charm of yours."

"Oh, please."

"No—remember when that one cadet wouldn't shoot you during that exercise? You were too cute to be a Goa'uld?" Jack's grinned widened—obviously, he enjoyed Daniel's discomfort.

"I think I'm going to be sick." The archaeologist did look a little green.

"Just don't do it where they can see, or they'll be offering themselves to nurse you back to health."

Daniel scowled, staring at his coffee for an inordinate amount of time before looking back up at O'Neill hopefully. "Maybe they're giggling at you."

O'Neill paused mid-chew, looked at the table again, and then shook his head. "Nope." He sipped from his cup, narrowing his eyes at his companion. "I'm too old. Grizzled. Gray hair and bad knees. I'm not giggle-worthy."

"Giggle-worthy?"

"You heard me." He took another sip, then gestured with the cup. "Besides, I'm a Colonel—I could just make them all run laps or do push ups, and then they wouldn't be giggling anymore."

"To whom are you referring, O'Neill?"

Teal'c sat at the table, across from the Daniel and next to the Colonel, where he always sat. He set his tray down, and then methodically started rearranging his food, as he always did.

Jack watched the Jaffa as he answered. "The recruits over there. They were giggling at Daniel."

Teal'c shifted slightly in his seat so that he could see them. Apparently unimpressed, he returned his posture to normal and readdressed his breakfast. "They do indeed seem to be paying this table a peculiar amount of attention, Daniel Jackson. Perhaps you could opportune yourself of this moment to expand your social calendar."

Daniel shuddered, then frowned as he lifted his coffee cup. "No. I've already been there, done that."

"Done what, expanded your social calendar?"

"No, Jack." Daniel shook his head and swallowed. "I've dated a giggler."

"I still don't see what your problem is—most girls I know like that are fun-loving. At the very least, you could have a good time—round the bases, so to speak."

Daniel considered, and then dismissed, the notion. "Yeah—you could. And then they want to play the role of 'supportive girlfriend' and come to your senior presentation with you, and get the giggles half way through." He set his cup down on his tray and reached for a bowl of fruit and a spoon.

"About what?" Jack actually looked interested.

"Well, in this particular instance, I was lecturing on the symbols and carvings found on a particular series of sarcophagi."

"What was so funny about that?"

Daniel sighed, his fingers tightening around the spoon. "She thought I was talking about the person within the sarcophagus—the 'sarcopha-GUY'." He stopped as O'Neill let out a short bark of what could have been laughter. He pursed his lips and continued. "She apparently couldn't handle it and began to giggle. It started out quiet, but then she got louder, and then the people around her started to laugh, and pretty soon the entire lecture hall was in hysterics. It would calm down, I would resume the lecture, and then she'd snort or something, and everyone would erupt again."

Teal'c lifted his glass of orange juice. "That sort of behavior appears to be akin to what Colonel O'Neill might have displayed in the same circumstance. I can understand why it would perturb you, Daniel Jackson."

Jack grinned. "Oh, come on, T, I'm not that bad."

But Teal'c didn't answer, merely lifted a brow and drank his juice.

Unperturbed, O'Neill continued. "Besides, Daniel, she kind of did you a favor, didn't she?"

"How so?"

"She prepared you for later on in your career—when people laughed at you with more regularity."

Daniel raised his head and tilted it slightly, staring at O'Neill from beneath furrowed brows. His mouth gaped a bit before he shook his head and blinked rapidly. "These things you say, Jack. Do they sound okay in your head?"

Jack's eyes widened. "What are you talking about? What things?"

"You just open your mouth and—it's incredible." Briefly at a loss for words, Daniel sputtered before taking a deep breath and continuing. "Most people have the ability to hear what they are going to say _before_ they say it and then filter out the things that might be hurtful or cruel."

"I didn't say anything either hurtful or cruel." Jack fiddled with the rest of his bagel. "No filter necessary."

The table sat bathed in silence for a brief moment before Daniel blew a frustrated breath out and looked back down at his plate.

"Besides, Daniel. You're the one that brought it up."

Carter had arrived, stopping behind her customary chair. "Brought what up, guys?"

Daniel thrust an exaggerated hand at the Colonel. "Tell her, Jack."

O'Neill raised his brows. "Don't want to."

"Because you know she'll side with me."

"You can't know that, Daniel."

"Yes, I can."

"How?"

"Because Sam is a sensitive, intelligent human being who cares about the people around her." Daniel pointed with his spoon. "That's how I know she'll be with me on this one."

Sam paused in her activity of arranging the food on her tray. She'd sat down across from the Colonel, and already plopped the tea bag in her cup of hot water. "Which one? Daniel? Colonel? What is this all about?"

Teal'c sighed and captured her gaze. "Colonel O'Neill and Daniel Jackson have been discussing many things this morning. Chief among them being Colonel O'Neill's apparent inability to keep himself from saying things which might harm the sensibilities of others."

Carter smiled despite herself, a quirky sideways grin that told everyone that she hadn't really meant to smile at all. She lowered her chin, and paid an exorbitant amount of attention to her tea.

Finally, Daniel let out an explosive sigh. "Come on, Sam. Tell him."

"_What_ am I supposed to tell him, Daniel?"

"That he's rude."

"She's not going to say it because she thinks I'm not." The Colonel leaned back in his chair, his wrists resting easily on the table. "Right, Carter?"

She chewed on her lower lip, her eyes flickering from one man to the other before tilting her head to one side and narrowing her eyes. "Why don't you tell me the whole conversation?"

"Is that entirely necessary, Major Carter? If otherwise, I would beg you to reconsider your request."

"Sorry, Teal'c." Sam steepled her brows, frowning a little. "I've got to know where this is coming from."

Daniel sighed and dropped his chin to his chest. Carter could sense his reluctance. She switched her focus to the Colonel, who was smiling.

"Well, Major, it all started with those airmen—airwomen—behind you." He arched a look at the table in question.

She flicked a glimpse at it, then nodded. "Okay? What about them?"

"Well, those ladies seem to have a problem with giggling whenever Daniel is near them."

Sam actually snorted. "Like _that's_ anything new."

Beside her, Daniel frowned. 'What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, come on, Daniel. All the women in this facility just about swoon every time you pass by. It's practically become protocol." She rolled her eyes as she lifted her cup of tea. "It's nauseating. I'd think that you'd be used to it by now."

The Colonel slapped a hand on the table. "Ah! See there, Danny? I win."

Carter widened her eyes, tilting her head again. "Well, sir, I wouldn't get too cocky."

"Cocky? Who's cocky?"

She shrugged. "All I'm saying, sir, is that you have a following of your own—as does Teal'c."

"But no gigglers." He pointed his whole hand at her. "Not like the infants that Daniel attracts."

She perused the table. "You may as well face it that all of you have women who are interested—or more than interested in you. Believe me. I have to hear about it all the time." She'd picked up a sugar packet, but tossed it down, now, in disgust.

"Why you?"

"Because believe it or not, sir, I'm a girl, too." She indicated herself with an open hand. "I know that fact is shocking to all of you, but it's true. And as a girl, I am frequently approached by the various females on the base and asked all sorts of questions about each of you."

The three testosterone carriers at the table stared at her as if she'd suddenly revealed the secrets of the entire universe.

Finally, in a voice that reminded Jack of the sixth grade, he said, "What kinds of questions?"

She rolled her eyes and moaned slightly. "Good grief—I constantly feel like I'm in high school again. 'Is the Colonel seeing anyone?' 'You and Daniel aren't a _thing_, are you?' 'Now, I know that Teal'c's a Jaffa, but that doesn't mean he couldn't be interested in an Earth girl, does it?' 'What's it like going off world with the three of them?'" Her voice had taken on a certain tone—nasal, higher than normal, mocking.

"Who? I mean, which ones?" Daniel had finally regained his power of speech. "Who've been asking questions about me?"

"Well, for you, it seems to be most rampant in new recruits and the nurses in the infirmary. The Colonel is a big favorite amongst the civilian women in accounting and human resources, and Teal'c—well—pretty much everyone else wants a piece of him. Someone even penciled a comment on one walls of a bathroom stall on Level Twenty-One—it says 'Once you go Jaffa, you never go back'." She rolled her eyes yet again. "Can you believe that?"

Teal'c's satisfied smile was distinctly unnerving. Yet, he said, "Indeed, I cannot, Major Carter."

She turned her attention back to her tea. "So, about the giggling—let's just say that no one has to deal with it as much as I do. And it never seems to let up. I've just had to resign myself to the fact that it's not going to stop as long as I'm on a team with the three of you."

The Colonel's cheeks puffed out, and then he let out an explosive sigh. "Okay then."

"What else was in the conversation?" She opened a tiny carton of milk and prepared to pour it onto her cereal.

"Well, then we were talking about dating someone like that—"

"A giggler." Carter clarified blandly.

"Yes." Daniel cleared his throat. "And I told him that I already had."

Sam raised her face towards Daniel, eyes wide. 'You mean, you told him about Gretchen?"

"Gretchen?" O'Neill leaned forward. "Her name was Gretchen? And you told _Carter_ about her?"

"Well, Jack, I wasn't going to tell _you_ about her."

"I've known you longer."

"Well, yeah, but—"

"So, you could've told me about this _Gretchen_."

"I could have. But I didn't."

Carter held up a hand towards the Colonel. "But the point is, I knew about her. So I know the kind of girl that Daniel does _not_ want to date."

"Yeah—he doesn't want to go out with Wretched the Giggler."

Daniel turned to Carter with a befuddled expression. "And he wonders why I didn't tell him."

Carter patted his hand gently. "I know, Daniel."

"Daniel Jackson then asked Colonel O'Neill if he heard voices in his head."

Sam frowned across the table at Teal'c. "I don't—"

"No, T, Daniel asked me if I could hear the things I say before I say them."

"No. He can't." Carter's response was immediate. She looked to her right again. "Daniel, you know he doesn't have a filter."

Daniel beamed, triumphant. "See, Jack? She sides with me."

"Just in the fact that I don't _have_ a filter—she hasn't said whether or not she thinks I _need_ a filter." He cocked an eyebrow at her, narrowing one eye.

She opened and closed her mouth for a moment, silent—wordless. Finally, she looked directly at the Colonel. "Sir, I mean no disrespect, but to be honest—"

"Aha!" Daniel didn't let her finish, just jumped a little in his chair and clapped his hands once. "See? I was right!" He stood, wiping at his mouth with a napkin. "I knew she'd be on my side!" He glanced at his watch and faltered. "And now I've really got to go, because I'm late for a meeting."

Teal'c stood, as well, angling a look downward at Sam. "I must go kelnorim, Major Carter. I wish you good day." He bowed slightly to the Colonel, and turned away.

Together, the two men passed through the door of the commissary and headed out of sight, leaving Colonel O'Neill sitting idly at the table while Carter finished her breakfast.

"You know, you aren't all innocent in the giggle thing." He suddenly broke the silence a few minutes later.

"Sir?"

"The giggling. You do it, too."

"I do not." Sam shook her head, spooning up another mouthful. "Not since Antarctica. When you ordered me not to."

"Yes, you do." O'Neill canted his head to the side. "You just hide it better, now."

"How so?"

The side of his mouth rose in a quasi-smile, and he regarded her intently for a minute before standing. "And by the way, Major, you aren't the only one that gets asked questions about team members. We aren't even going to list how many officers, enlisted men, and civilians ask about you on a daily basis. There are three of us, and only one of you. You're a far more rare commodity."

"Sir?"

He rapped his knuckles on the table softly, then turned and headed out the door.

Carter watched him go, then bit her lips. Suddenly, her shoulders started shaking, and she placed a hand over her mouth.

Without warning, the Colonel's head and shoulders appeared in the doorway, and he pointed at her sharply.

"Major Carter!"

She jumped, fighting to wipe the grin off her face, but finding it wasn't possible. "Yes, sir?"

"Stop giggling!"


End file.
